[``Tiflat al-Harb`` appeared in Sargon Boulus` posthumous collection `Azma Ukhra li-Kalb al-Qabila (Baghdad and Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2008)

The Child of War

(To an Iraqi child who was born, and died, during the war)

The child came

The one missing in the war

She stood at the end of the hallway

Holding a candle

I see her whenever I wake up

at the first hour of dawn

She waits for me to hit

the wall of reality

Her eyes, vast because of the of horror of wisdom,

are patient among the hills’ thorns

There, where my thoughts search at night

My hand can break her chains

My voice might pose questions

to the murderer or to God

Questions whose answers she knows. . .

How long has this war gone on, child?

How many nights has it been at the bottom of which well?

What eternity of pain coming from all directions?

What would the four-star general have done

had they deprived his child of her milk for one day?

The child says:

They took my family on a ship

to the other world

I always knew that they would leave me here

Alone, on the shore

I knew. . .

[Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon]