ISSUE: Winter 2018
She has drawn them disembarking a sky-blue bus,
fresh from the bombing of Al Hajar. Some stumble
in the red-blobbed orchard, their hair shedding dust.
They are queuing up for their place at the long table.
There’s rolls and pink meat fit for a bunch of kids,
a striped jug of milk between two pyramids of apples.
When they are done the table will be cleared for tig.
But one boy stands on his own by the refuse trough
where the mash is mulled over by bright neon pigs.
I ask my daughter why the boy is stood a way off.
She says his shirt’s too rough. His outline’s wrong.
Says he’ll wreck the camp songs with his cough.
No doubt his hammock will be cold in the morning.
He’ll head back to the drab streets of Damascus
back in the universe where I have added nothing.
