Terrorist Sympathiser

You have my sympathies if you load bullets into a Kalashnikov

Instead of your children into photo albums

You have my sympathies if you down bottles every night

Because they are needed for a more volatile kind of cocktail

You have my sympathies if you can no longer passively resist bullets

When they snatched your crying baby and held it down under the water

Until both your screams were silenced

And you were asked

What kind of mother would stand by and do nothing

And you replied

The soldiers were coming, and I had other children

You have my sympathies

When the boat capsized and you cursed the merciful and compassionate

For blessing you with three children but only two hands

You have my sympathies

When the bomb exploded under the truck in front of you

And you stumbled bleeding back into the barracks

Only to find the faces of your dead friends staring back at you

In the bathroom mirror

And with a fine toothed comb you scrape them out of your hair

And package them in matchboxes for their mothers

And when what’s left of you sits cold outside the high tower and you hear the clink of ivory cups as they swill blood and repeat the old lie,

It is good and noble to send someone else to die for your money

You have my sympathies