Poverty Kills Faster Than Bullets
She stared into an empty space,
as she stirred what remained of her mother.
Her eyelids swollen,
with cried and uncried tears
that drained her tear glands into dryness.
Smoke still rose from the barrels
of guns whose cartridges
refused to empty.
Death smiled in her mirrors,
obscuring her feeble grasp on life.
One stray soldier rushed near;
she begged him to cut the thread tying her to life.
But he ignored her,
for his own heart too hung in his mouth.
Even her grief he ignored.
Many children and women
shared the deathbed of her mother.
Only gritty sand served as their mattress,
while caked blood clogged their veins,
and vultures circled to feast on mangled flesh.
She blamed not the soldiers,
but those hidden behind round tables
who ordered the destruction and death
of innocents
that understood none of their political riddles.
Surely the future is too crowded
to create for her a space.
Poverty waits for her to see tomorrow,
before her belly tells her
its emptiness kills faster than bullets.
Yet those who shot dead her mother
care less what becomes of her tomorrow.
Their mandate is to kill, and kill they do.
But who will tell those iron-headed leaders
that wars sink the poor deeper into poverty?
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