Children at the beach

dig shoe-box-sized pits

to bury their little

brothers and sisters.

They dig with their hands

or bubblegum-coloured spades.

Some are swaddled,

bleeding rose petals between soft folds.

Some are skeletons, re-assembled

from pieces of flotsam,

driftwood, pink and white shells.

It’s the children’s war, and they dig

thousands and thousands

of these little graves,

until the beach is a sponge.

The little brothers and sisters

looked up at a Gazan slice of sky

(all they knew) before it filled with:

the droning of dragonflies,

white phosphorus, and bombs dropping.

Children and sea spray

evaporating.