The Center for Victims of Torture
717 E. River Parkway
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 436-4800
cvt@cvt.org

Amnesty International USA
5 Penn Plaza
NY NY 10001
212.807.8400
www.amnestyusa.org

Greetings to an Uzbekistan Torturer
published in Encore 2011, NFSPS

How’re you today? Fine?
A  good mood and good health
seem like signs of good fortune
for a life well lived.
Don’t you feel that?
In passing, though, Takir Nurmukhamedov
was not fortunate, given his death
at your hands, those of a
government employee with a family to care for, I guess.
Do your children have career day at school in Andijan?
Do they ask what you do?
“Come to school with us, Dad.  We’re
so proud of you.
What do you do? Can you show our teacher
what you do?
Do they worry about your smoking, your health?
You don’t have to smoke at home. No one
to burn, no flesh to singe. And smoking
is bad for your health. Cancer, you know.
Lungs don’t grow back like fingernails.
Stability is everything, when governing a dictatorship.
Continuing control is imperative as
finding out the truth about protestors
who demand to stand in front of soldiers
with their entire families until they’re killed,
hundreds on the unluckiest thirteenth of May
They got what they asked for--
liberation by death,
like Takir received from you
after burns and beatings to questions
about names of nonexistent outside agitators.
But you’re doing your job,
keeping your world safe for your children,
who don’t know what their father does,
but will someday.
Don’t worry about us judging you.
We can’t find your city on a map
or pronounce your name properly,
probably.
Do you remember your name?