Yemen Slaughter August 9, 2018

If one is hungry And bored Of watching over Mecca, What better place To steal an apple Than from another country’s orchards, With fighter jets Twanged in the sky Like flying bottle openers, Diving down And peeling back a tin can roof Of a school bus Loaded with 40 children, Whose shoulders are all Strapped With blue and red back packs That look like little lunch boxes, One of them Surely containing The sweet temptation Of the perfect apple. Mistaken identity, can happen. So, a few bombs, True, Have to remove The dozens of windows And deposit The million shards like razors To flay the skin of the girls and boys And, in an attempt to remain civilized About this, First cook With fire and oil The cheekbones from the skulls Of the five year olds Who are still alive, And it’s important to keep fresh The liver, tongues and hearts Shish-kebobbed With splintered ribs, white as serpents, And finally, then There it is, The well done slab of lamb’s meat Still clung, red as a beet, Limbs and noses, To be stripped From that one buried back pack And within it, zipped, The fine taste of a ripe apple Polished by mom As a snack that was packed, That day, For school.