The Writing on the Wall
 
‘Doctor, your turn’
We were just playing around
during recess.
 
‘Doctor, your turn’
We laughed about the graffiti we’d seen  
on tv in Cairo as we scrawled.
 
But Bashar the ophthalmologist was
watching and sent cousin Najib (The General)
to examine us with electric prods.
‘Forget about your sons, consider having
new children.’ He ordered our parents.
 
The Arab Spring set up shoots of civil war
and they tangled themselves in the weeds of
faction and sect. Shia versus Sunni, Da’esh,
Hezbollah, Nusia Front, the Islamic Brotherhood
and the inevitable Kurds until
they were all swallowed up by a full-grown plant
made from the lush leaves of proxy international conflicts.
 
‘Doctor, your turn’
Now Omar holds fast to his dead baby brother, smothered by
Aleppo’s shattered walls and waits his turn to
see the only doctor left as Syria’s children are forgotten.