Khadijah Queen



Strikes




A crowd of children, their darkened eyes
shh mesmerized
behind gray lids,
and wrapped in shrouds

of flags, or yellow tarps, or gauze,
or arms, and shhh
mother, father,
carpet bombers,

they are sleeping, shh first two, then
shh two dozen
sleeping, hundreds
of hungry beds.






Khadijah Queen is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. Her first book of poetry, Conduit, was published in 2008 under the Black Goat imprint of Akashic Books (NY), and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. She is currently a graduate fellow in studio art at the University of South Florida. Her website is at http://www.imagesound.tk/.



(author retains copyright)