Familiar

Tangled hair beneath filthy chadors — the familiar homes of lice; blotched and wrinkled cheeks, red buds unopened, their petals torn, — the familiar paths of tears. Dry, crusted fingers — the familiar place of “property” — snatched property: a bit of bread, a necklace, some water, anything... Days without tomorrow, without a view of the horizon, without a red rose... Plundered beauty in bodies that have never seen soap, trampled, thrown into this ward; the general ward: all around me... Tell me truly! Who built this building?