Yemen Girl

young girl with a thousand names
stands in the doorways of Yemen
long skirt billows in the breeze

young girl stands in the jaws
of war and hunger
no rain but bombs fall from the sky

she clutches her headscarf
confronts the camera level-eyed
one eye steeled in the pugnacity of life
the other convulsed in horror

the roofs fall on the uncles
the walls crash onto cribs
the ground erupts in blisters
under the shrapnel sky

the young girl is our grandmothers
hands past and future clasped
together in a star-lit continuum
a long procession of endurance

​loss and love

News Story

dead giraffes in the Kenyan bush
dissolve like rancid butter
in the heat of the unending drought

emaciated cattle lie down in the desert sand
serrated ribs sink into rivulets of erosion
carved long before by extinct rain

the village digs deep in the earth
to find the trembling brown water
lifted to the light bucket by bucket

the four year old girl
too weak to raise her head
eyes like dead fish

a childhood without a childhood
where laughter never rains
only dust so eager to devour

and way to the North
an oozing caramel of cars
scarifies the land in toxic opulence

and a child’s balloon is caught
on power lines
in dark descending twilight
--
Boys
brothers and cousins
emerge from the family compound
and follow snow-dusted lanes
to the busy avenues in Kabul

with their shoeshine kits
a group of four
in case they encounter
hostile competition

to earn a few coins
worth an american nickel
to buy bread
to take home to family

they wish they were in school
to become doctors or engineers
when they grow up
but since their fathers have no work

they shine shoes
unless like this morning
no one needs their services
stomachs pang eyes are proud

wait— a few pairs of shoes
thrust out of a door
the boys sit on the ground
and work

just enough for a bread
split four ways
after all
workers have to be fed

the veiled sun begins to descend
in the grey winter sky behind minarets
the mantle of responsibility
doesn’t ward off the cold

shoulders hunch forward
night will be long again
take the long way home
in case fortune might smile

and fill a few pockets
with bread for the sisters
mothers and the fathers
who scratch proverbs in the dust

with stunted sticks
and count exhausted prayer beads
simmering in frustration
afraid to look in mirrors

the boys’ shadows stretch homewards
sweet delay of a few more transactions
muffled laughter at an inside joke
warm bread warms the hand

​child is father to the man
give all a fair portion of dignity
give all the means to be
the lion will hold high his head