For Hind Rajab
You were six years old
When the metal monster
Murdered you in the pitch black
Dark of the night.
In a sweet voice filled with fear,
The Red Crescent Cell Center dispatcher
Listened to you on your cell phone
Until the connection was lost.
“I’m so scared, please come.
Come take me. Please will you come?
The tank is next to me…it’s coming towards me.
It’s very, very close.”
Twelve days later, your family finds
Your uncle’s black Kia, windows blown out,
Doors riddled with bullet holes,
Their dear, sweet, innocent Hind martyred.
Previously published in The Porter Gulch Review
Buried Under the Rubble
Joyce Msuya tells UN Security Council that the ‘daily cruelty
we see in Gaza seems to have no limits.’
Imagine for a moment it is you buried under the rubble.
For twelve hours, after the bomb exploded,
You lay under tons of rubble, trapped, unable to move,
Both legs broken, blocks of splintered stone wedged
On both sides of your body. The floor above you,
Braced on two pillars of stone, rests inches from your face.
Outside you hear IDF drones flying overhead,
Their machine guns rattling off rounds, killing anything
That moves, while Civil Defense rescue workers dig painstakingly
To pull you out of the rubble. It is dark and you
Breathe in dust and dirt. The place you once called home
Now is your grave.
You remember hearing the bomb barreling its way
Through the house, floor-by-floor, before it exploded.
Then the house collapsed. You have no idea what happened
To your father and mother and three brothers and two sisters.
You give up and are close to going mad.
When you are pulled from the rubble, you notice afterward
Your black hair has turned snow-white.
Victor Henry's poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream; The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; The Monterey Poetry Review; The Porter Gulch Review; Dead Snakes; and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book of Vietnam poetry, What They Wanted, was published by Future Cycle Press.
You were six years old
When the metal monster
Murdered you in the pitch black
Dark of the night.
In a sweet voice filled with fear,
The Red Crescent Cell Center dispatcher
Listened to you on your cell phone
Until the connection was lost.
“I’m so scared, please come.
Come take me. Please will you come?
The tank is next to me…it’s coming towards me.
It’s very, very close.”
Twelve days later, your family finds
Your uncle’s black Kia, windows blown out,
Doors riddled with bullet holes,
Their dear, sweet, innocent Hind martyred.
Previously published in The Porter Gulch Review
Buried Under the Rubble
Joyce Msuya tells UN Security Council that the ‘daily cruelty
we see in Gaza seems to have no limits.’
Imagine for a moment it is you buried under the rubble.
For twelve hours, after the bomb exploded,
You lay under tons of rubble, trapped, unable to move,
Both legs broken, blocks of splintered stone wedged
On both sides of your body. The floor above you,
Braced on two pillars of stone, rests inches from your face.
Outside you hear IDF drones flying overhead,
Their machine guns rattling off rounds, killing anything
That moves, while Civil Defense rescue workers dig painstakingly
To pull you out of the rubble. It is dark and you
Breathe in dust and dirt. The place you once called home
Now is your grave.
You remember hearing the bomb barreling its way
Through the house, floor-by-floor, before it exploded.
Then the house collapsed. You have no idea what happened
To your father and mother and three brothers and two sisters.
You give up and are close to going mad.
When you are pulled from the rubble, you notice afterward
Your black hair has turned snow-white.
Victor Henry's poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream; The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; The Monterey Poetry Review; The Porter Gulch Review; Dead Snakes; and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book of Vietnam poetry, What They Wanted, was published by Future Cycle Press.
