Her eyes look with

an empty plea,

a deep hollow plea

that rumbles in my soul with

the beat of

tribal drums.

 

What seemed like

safety

was perverted

and turned into

monstrous dread

as she fled

those scenes of

fire and blood.

 

Trust,

this most delicate of flowers,

was trampled:

its petals opened and savaged.

 

One day,

maybe one day,

the fear and brutality

might be

a grandmother’s tale

told in fertile gardens.

 

But for now,

the scars are hidden and seen:

present on the body

and recurrent in that face

that no longer

dares to form

a smile.

 

She is far away,

this women in Africa:

Country-less but from a country;

far from the security of

this neat white life.

 

She suffers

and I watch,

paralysed.

 

29-8-2010