Broken hearts rattle
like shell-shards in a
tobacco tin
The shrieks of bayoneted babies
The groans of beaten babies
The call of babies
wailing for love
The dead eyes of dissociated babies
The silence of babies
whose hearts are broken
In Uganda, where the warlords —
In Afghanistan, where the soldiers —
In Australia, where the preachers
and the books
and the fathers
and, bewildered,
the mothers
and the poets —
At the book launch
One hundred brains,
roughly level
in this vaulted room
You would think —
You would think we could —
Broken hearts rattle
like shell-shards in a
tobacco tin