a child draws the Tigres River running red with blood
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a child mangled and dead: a child crying and burned
bloody little legs dangling down
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more bombs more bombs all along the Tigris River bend
a mutilation without end
the face of imperium: this smallest death
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waved a severed hand he found calling Bush Bush
in this holocaust that boils up
clots of plague in the eyes and tar in the mouth
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I am twelve years old: armless in my bed
my mother dead my father dead: twenty of my family dead
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bodies gathered in a blasted land
buried their darlings in the dry ground
shamal: Arabic: sandstorm:
pulverized hearts
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the merchants of hunger are the merchants of death and destruction
humanitarians: we bring you cholera and diarrhea
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his wife bombed dead his little wounded girl
there is a weeping that swallows the world
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shot him in the eye: how does such pain die?
three men crying with bleeding wounds
a tank crushes my life: my poetry is broken
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they break the sweet date palms
Poem by Sarah Menefee
Illustrations by Nancy Victoria Davis