The sole survivor

Over 200 feared dead in Syrian attack

The Guardian, 13 July 2012

They picked him out

from a gut-spattered nook

among the leftovers

of a brother and two sisters,

no crib for the living there,

they said,

no rest for the extant.

The commanders taking stock

dust him off, pat him down

and force him to stand

for hours, his charred fingers

knotted behind his head,

keeping him from clearing

the bile from his mouth

or the past from his eyes.

They mistake his tear-tracks

for a traitor’s fears,

beat from him names, times

and places, credible details

of cowardice and treason.

At the pocked wall

they offer him a cigarette

which he declines

out of a habit of surviving.

(c) Slush Poet