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
