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
Crowned
“king of the gods” in high school,
caped with scepter in hand, a gentle smile,
the basketball star in our tiny world,
at 21, a lieutenant in Vietnam.
Bombs
fell on the green villages
perimeters strafed and over-run
maimed bodies,
youth,
sanity,
all sacked up together like shades of rice
before the boiling pot.
Carved
your name
on marble,
held in place
by those who died before
and after you,
carved on black
marble reflecting back the twisted mouths
holding grief high and tight,
hands offering medals,
roses,
poems
to names on a wailing wall.
FEWalls
A Long Perspective 