Rockets

"The planes came at nine,"
he said.
"At two in the morning
I buried my son. Then we left."

"They warned us what was going to happen
but we had no money to leave."

"My son, Taj, was hit worst
'he gestured with his hands'
"His stomach was blown open.
He was five years old."

Yesterday, at work
in a big superstore I saw
the notices go up:
Fireworks For Sale.

We carried on as usual
while small, bright eyed kids
pressed their noses
up against the firework display case
and chose
"Martian Invasion and
"All the ones with the biggest bangs, sparklers" and dismissed
traffic lights as "boring."

"He was very small," he said.
"It was too early to think about
what he wanted to do with his life"

We look forward
to the excitement of fireworks:
they had what we would call nothing
and now
they have nothing and bombs.

------------------------------------------------
Quotations in 1, 2, 3, 6, are words spoken by Fazal Mohammed in a
hospital in Quetta, taken from an article by Patrick Bishop in Daily
Telegraph, 15/10/01