Pretty Soon He'll Run Out of Daughters

 

 

 

Afghanistan

thrown back overnight

into medieval chaos

women are always the first

to go Down

dirt kicked into the faces

of the lives they’d built

in streets only recently released

from an ancient poverty

Returned

to Suffocating Dark

 

9-year-old daughter sold

the Family All Important

will eat for three months

Father begs him not to beat her

as the man pulls her thin arm

pulls her into the car

to take her away

 

last year the 12-year-old sold

she brought more

she could work harder

            and was closer to breeding

the Family ate for a year that time

 

one more girl

only 5

then what?

 

bittersweet from birth

mothers’ savage offspring

the daughters so rarely rejoiced in

except for what money can buy

so recently liberated

to Promises of a modern life

only to be betrayed

sold again

 

can they be saved

for what?

to Hope?

Hope

 

faint and Slowly unfurling

like a flag or a flower

then Doors Bursting Open

the Booted Feet of

the weapons in the hands of

Blind Religionists

the Old Lies against Woman

pouring like blood

            broken dam of flesh & bone

tearing away thin skin

veneer of Freedom

no more in this Land