CNN Reporting (poem)

The latest reports from Baghdad are ominous. Children by the busloads

are arriving every day at camps just outside the city. They are coming

from all over the country, Uruk, Nineveh, Basra and Babylon,

sick and dying children, hollow eyed, stomachs distended, skin peeling,

cancerous. They are boarding wide- bodied jets, paid for by UNICEF

and Voices In The Wilderness. They will be transported to destinations

in the United States, to town squares, ball parks, churches and shopping malls:

in Boston, LA, Seattle, Miami. Most are headed for Washington, D.C.

The children smile as they board the jets, the first in their short lives.

They are happy, their travel documents came through. At long last, America

can watch them die between Coke and Hershey on the evening network news.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu. Copyright: M. Shahid Alam.