You bloody cried, didn’t you,
over the wee Syrian boy in the orange chair?
He didn’t cry.
You fucking sobbed into your supper, didn’t you?
It was unpalatable, but it wasn’t the scran
you were choking on.
Wee boy dwarfed by that chair, but it’s ok,
the camera assures in graphic click,
he’s got a torn-up teddy bear.
Not in our name, you say. Imaginative bastards.
His misery, not yours. His blood, not yours.
His loss, not yours.
Our war, not his.
Carolyn O' Connell 