The Kibeho Slaughterhouse Poem by Lisa Rhodes

The Rwandan battle front
drowned into a red sea:
a private shooting gallery
where government troops
massacred children and women,
dismembered bodies, stomping
over them, leaving their
footprints bloody branding
bare backs, soaking
each victim like a dry-

ice cube burning minds
touched by
naked eyes, blood, big brother.

It is the Killing Season-
a sport in Rwanda-
to massacre
women and children
for the welfare of politics?

'Scapegoat the babies,
people will listen;
There cannot be a cleansing without
the shedding of blood, ' said the militia.