Small Arms (Poetry)

Scrawny — as though their bird-like infant bones
have never known the weight of healthy flesh —
with skin soon withered brown by ceaseless sun
and scorched by the indifferent winds of drought.

Their limbs seem old, unnatural — loosely hooked
to fragile joints all hollowed out, sucked dry
as tinder wood, and elbows worn to points
move stiffly — like stick puppets, jerking wild

as they struggle, lift too-brittle arms to beg
open-mouthed and searching — tasting air
for anything to soothe the growling ache
of hunger and the thirst that keeps them mute.

Hunched mothers tend them, whisper empty words —
the only comfort in a stricken land
where every need is in such short supply —
each rocks their dying baby on its way...

So different in the discontented West
where chubby newborns nestle in their cribs
the last feed milk still drying round their mouths
oblivious and smug in nurseryland

while in another room the TV drones
and parents haggle over booze and debt —
complain about the social benefit —
how can anybody manage? Feed the dog

the dinner no one wanted after all
sit and smoke and watch the News at Ten —
the latest on the famine — sigh a bit
but fail to draw a human parallel.