She was 12 when they came.
It was dark and humid
Her mother, shaking next to her
On the frayed mat, stained by coughed up blood,
That they shared as a bed.

Papa left them so long ago,
She couldn’t even remember his face.
She and her mother worked all day
Rolling cigarettes for a man whose
Fury rolled like thunder.

They could hear them coming,
Shouting and gunfire and malatov
Cocktails, burning the only village,
The only people she had ever known.

She couldn’t breathe in the thick air
Her mother tried to carry her-
Her legs frozen from fear-
And they burst in and took them.

She was on the end of the
Shooting like, and watched everyone
Fall, one by one, as they mean laughed
Cruel, bitter laughs and told crass jokes.
They stopped, to get more ammunition

She ran,
Turning only at the sound of
A trigger, she watched her mother fall.