Member Poem

The Children Have Stopped Crying
 
“Aleppo is a place where the children have stopped crying.”
--Channel 4 online video of victims of repeated Syrian and Russian  bombing, December 2016
 
But the only adult
still alive in the family
cannot stop wailing
at the death of her daughter,
and the teenage neighbor
caught in between
hospital doorframes
will not let go
of the swaddled corpse
of his one-month-old brother.
 
And the children’s faces,
grayed by the dust
of smithereened buildings,
turn towards and away from
the camera, their eyes
blank as the sky once
the planes have disappeared.
 
Their hands, baby-fatted
and bloodied, fold politely
in their laps. They are
waiting for a doctor
to dress their wounds.
They are waiting for their aunt
to stop moaning. They are
waiting for someone
to tell them exactly
what to do now.
 
 
Originally published in the Spring 2017 issue of Whale Road Review