Sugar plum fairies – 

Empty as a holy drum. 

Information age. 

Cloak. Rainfall. Ancient – 

No history of sequoia. 

Face cold as snow. 

The Stoic child has veins – 

Fangs in my Roman nightmares. 

Their bones taste like fudge. 

Mad dance for food. Swamp – 

The pen haunts the journalist. 

Rilke’s sea shivers. 

Blanket that itches – 

A moon as thin as eggshells. 

The cold when it comes 

Despair. Milkless war – 

There’s no money. No funding. 

I read the Scriptures. 

Verses don’t make sense – 

Only the sight of blood’s door. 

Emergency trucks. 

Absence of sunscreen – 

Sleeping moon child out of sight. 

Pizza moon. Black foot. 

No strawberries. Just  

the despair of this struggle. 

Children go hungry. 

Babies have no milk – 

Have no film. No camera. Only memory. 

Malnourished river – 

The shell of a mind reader. Bodies of famine. 

The guide, the Elder – 

This camp. Sprawling tent cities. Refugee. Please, aid.