Rewrite

Salaam

"Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9

Somewhere a girl with stick-thin limbs and veins
that run like fractured spider webs beneath
her parchment skin is waiting for a sign.
No angels have appeared, no gods have granted
immortality. She barely breathes,
but look! Her fingers twitch convulsively -
ten cornered mice who've spied the serpent's stare.
She speaks in foreign tongues to men that no
one sees. Her mother weeps, her father rails
against her worthlessness and sells her in
the street. Her value's nil, her price is low,
and no one intercedes on her behalf.
Eventually she'll strap a bomb around
her waist and send her innocence to hell.


Her name is Peace - quite possibly
she's our responsibility. She could be God.