- Seaglass eyes in the desert
- green fear glaring forth
- above a defiant mouth.
- Russian bombs have fallen
- in range of those young eyes,
- have orphaned her, sent her
- to walk through snow to the
- camp where the foreign man
- asked, “May I take your picture?”
- Take your picture.
- Take it to windows, kiosks,
- mail boxes, fridge doors,
- to Brooklyn Kobe Lagos London,
- a fierce and nameless girl,
- infinitely multiplied on paper,
- locking eyes with the world.
- Your concern cannot erase
- what she has seen, restore
- what she has lost, but it’s
- kind of you to care, to
- wonder if she lived.
- Her daughters clasped close
- to her purple burka, she looks
- out from a page again. The soft
- skin is lined now around those
- eyes you know. They ward
- your bombs away from her
- children. Those eyes accost you,
- from her world of sand.
