A child is long black hair, identified
by ribbon-bound braids amidst the remains
of bones shattered
of blood splattered
of flesh scattered
in the rubble heap she once called home.
Two more closed eyes under white blankets,
butchered on the land they ought to own.
Her mother cries on a mattress,
clutching the bagged fragments of a child God abandoned,
just another number in the latest newspaper
as leaders of the so-called free world deny this crime
erasing seven centuries of slaughter
with seven new euphemisms for genocide
phrased in passive voice to pacify the other side,
because soldiers get killed. Palestinians just die.