A Perfect Child

Inside a one-mile radius of Osama Bin-Laden,

There is a perfectly normal child.

 

She has a favourite toy.

It is grubby, ragged, well-loved.

 

She has a bed, whatever she calls it,

A place safe, a blanket, thin, but known; familiar.

It smells of child. It smells of home.

It smells safe.

 

She has small feet.

She runs fast in the dust, but not fast enough.

She dances, but not to any tune.

She is a perfectly normal child.

 

She sees the very tall man. He smiles at her.

She is a little scared of him.

She does not know how many perfectly normal children he has incinerated or crushed.

He sometimes gives her sweets.

She smiles, runs away, utterly pleased, uncatchable.

 

She has a mother, still.

As a mother, she is clear as crystal.

Mother is mother.

As an adult, her role is obscure, hazy.

Where does Mother go?

What is Mother when she goes away?

Whom does she please?

 

Above, a machine flies with the tone of a hot-rod lawn-mower.

Tireless, men in Las Vegas steer it,

 

High above

a perfectly normal child.

 

-Piet Bess, 2007