This is a poem about the Bosnian Conflict. Learn more about the conflict and genocide on this page.
Two young women shield their faces; children again, they block out the
bogey-man as the corpses of their
people are unloaded.
On make-shift beds and faces are set in pain;
burly men, now passive, view their stumps
with the wrung grimace of defeat.
Toddlers encircled in a mother’s arms with
eyes that have seen not pretty things,
await some nameless horror.
A little girl, a slide in her hair,
sitting on a kerb, puckers her brow
to puzzle out why being a Muslim
means she has to leave Banja Luka.
