To the little Iraqi girl in a Time magazine photograph

Across the culture, space and language that separates us
I reach out to you to comfort you
Six-year-little-Iraqi-girl wailing, helpless, sittingonthesidewalk
next to the car that pretended to protect
your just dead mother and father
victims of this new hot war.

All I want to do is cry with you
let your tears wet my shirt.

My cry too is wordless, I have no excuses
filled with empty phrases like 'collateral damage'.

Both, words and I
utterly, hopelessly incapable of answering
the one burning question that your eyes are asking.

Ana asef that I didn’t and still don’t do more
Victim that I am of my own tyranny of comforts.

Sanjiv Shah