Little children - a poem by Chris Zachariou

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Rachel with a yellow star

on her tiny little arm
walks into the jaws of death.

Smoke pours out of the chimney

and the smell of burning flesh

hangs heavy in the air.

Ismail is screaming.

He cannot see but still can feel

his leg that's no longer there.

Death keeps falling from the sky

and all the time you can hear

the cries of children dying.

Mariam embraces her future—

a stick of dynamite and a gun.

Then she walks into a mosque.