In Somalia

 

In Somalia, a thirteen-year-old girl

was gang-raped by six men.

Found guilty by a Sharia court,

the girl was buried in sand up to her neck

and stoned to death.

 

Repeat that three times and

maybe your brain will absorb it

Repeat three times and maybe

your blood will boil and you’ll never forget it.

 

In Somalia, a thirteen-year-old girl

was gang-raped by six men.

Found guilty by a Sharia court,

the girl was buried in sand up to her neck

and stoned to death.

 

Who brought the charges, her brothers,

her father?  Her rapists?

And what happened to them?

 

Nothing, apparently,  the article

doesn’t say, the girl was just an incidental

mention in a larger study, not even named,

just that she was thirteen,

and gang-raped by six men

and found guilty by a Sharia court

and buried in sand up to her neck

and stoned to death.

 

Do women also throw the stones

Or it is an exclusively male pastime?

 

I can’t digest this.

I can’t see lone and level sands

stretching far away without seeing a shape:

not a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem

but a head, the smashed, shattered head

of a thirteen-year-old girl.

 

---

 

Claudia Morrison is the author of a novel, From The Foot of the Mountain, a collection of stories, I Should Know, and a memoir in poetry and prose, Coordinates.  She taught English for many years at John Abbott College.