By Wendy J Dunn

A child bleeds.

Head broken

Wound open

Torso pocked by gunfire.

He cries

Terrified

“Where’s my father?

My brothers?”

No one dares to answer.

A prison ship sails

On Australian seas.

Children, men, women

Denied sunlight

Denied hope

Turn back boats?

Turn our backs, more like.

So much, for

Aussie Fair go.

Two sisters

Stiff, lifeless

Swing in a tree

Their saris

Strange leaves

The rope rips apart

Dead flesh

The earth

Beneath them

Dark, dried with blood.

A mother says

To her raped little daughter:

‘Come home from hospital

Be safe

We’ll put you into bed

Buried,

Protected,

by the grave’.

A plane falls from the sky

Downed by hatred.

Children’s toys

Lie amongst

Rotting corpses

Where?

Where’s humanity’s story

In this?

Image by Caroline Grondin