The newborn, screaming, red-faced,

held by his feet, upside-down,

slapped, pinched into that first

cry, his first breath angry, the mother

unconscious, gutted on the table, her leg

broken, her arm broken, hauled in 9-months

pregnant, shrapnel in her belly,

the house blown to smithereens around her.

All that death. The baby’s

heart silent, the dust, the rubble,

the bombs, almost the last

doctor in ancient Aleppo

saying to a nurse,

“Hand me the scalpel.”

FEWalls