Children of Lahore

CHILDREN OF LAHORE (Easter Sunday 2016) Arms flailing From Her Blue burka, The woman Jumps Like a checkerboard Piece Up and over The white squares Of bedsheet To bedsheet To bedsheet Each Draped Over a Red blossom Bump Lumped And soaked on The gravel dust Fairground Floor. Like a game of peekaboo Between mother and baby, The woman Lifts A corner of sheet Howls Then pins it back With her fingernails And just as quickly Jumps To the next Small Square Hump-covered Sheet Lifts Repeating The move Three hundred More Times. “Ibrahim! Ibrahim?” A police officer puts her in handcuffs. No, her husband Is tackling her. Actually, She is a fly swatter Crazed, swinging at new yellow ghosts. She Tears Her hair Out From the back of her head Like overgrown grass Grabbed From a mud puddle In clumps Clamped In her garlic-laced fists, Even the dirt is surprised, Hanging By its bloody roots, Dripping In the air. That is what a bomb, does. She was a mother An hour before, Before she lost her shoes, While she sat to the side, chatting With friends On a bench As the Merry-Go-Rounds Went round and round And round In the safe distance And the painted horses Panted In the yellow dust. The children stood in line, Waiting their turn, Sharing candies From pockets and purses, Checking time From their phones. The mother’s shoes Were spooked Away Like fish behind a glass At the moment Of the hot flash and swish. That man, Yes He knocked on the glass, He knocked on the glass, He pressed his narrow face As he peered in, Yes, He knocked on that glass Just before He pulled the cord Wrapped Round his waist. Oh, beautiful God How could you allow this? How could Even the Devil Do it? Only a man. Only a man Of unfaith, Of course, Could smother the sunlight, like that, Blowing to smithereens A playground full of children.