The newborn, screaming, red-faced,
held by his feet, upside-down,
slapped, pinched into that first
cry, his first breath angry, the mother
unconscious, gutted on the table, her leg
broken, her arm broken, hauled in 9-months
pregnant, shrapnel in her belly,
the house blown to smithereens around her.
All that death. The baby’s
heart silent, the dust, the rubble,
the bombs, almost the last
doctor in ancient Aleppo
saying to a nurse,
“Hand me the scalpel.”
FEWalls
A Long Perspective 