Flumes Volume 2: Issue 1, Summer 2017 | Page 16

Assad

by Jassi K. Bassi

a boy's shrill voice rises into the sky

a drone flies over me

i will not turn away i hear him

they did not die in vain

i would pluck the world like a fruit

to place it in his little hands

he is welcome they're all welcome

the children the children the children

Aleppo is a place where the children

have stopped crying

a place where the sky watches over them

the sky awaits to fall onto children

sleeping in their mother's arms

it steals the sleep from a baby's eyes

it steals the souls of mothers ----their children

it steals their homes

it steals the spirit of youth

from the heart of a child

3