asleep at home in Homs. A shell
fired the bedclothes
and the children burned.
It made the news. Shots of them
in hospital cots, broadcast;
tiny blackened hands, burying themselves
in soft pink teddybear fur.
Six years of operations, and Qamar is 9.
She loves doctors; she’d like to heal too.
Boys still point: look at her
disfigured face.
Qamar draws her dream house
and a mosque. What does she pray for?
I ask God to cure me; re-make me
more beautiful than I was before.
Syria shelling: 'They used to tell me I was beautiful'
Sue Norton has had poems published in various magazines. She was a prizewinner in the 2017 Rialto/RSPB Nature Poetry competition.
© Sue Norton
