A Hope Baby by Debasis Mukhopadhyay

“Syrian baby ‘Hope’ born with shrapnel in her head survives”: News headline, September 23, 2015

Funky Doodle, have you not been watching, listening? No birds ever fell out of barrel bombs. No tomorrows ever gave suck to those who crossed the fence thinking the edge of the flat earth is nothing but a myth. Killings have not ever been condemned for faking behind the closet of war. Meanwhile, we all liked her story on Facebook. Thank God, the shrapnel was nothing but a birthday gift.

“A shrapnel for Amel”. You see, all rhyme is not just for rhyme’s sake. A shrapnel that had pierced the womb of the mother and her baby was in fact meant to be Hope. Finally, it’s just a birthmark with a swirl on her face. Amel is alive and keeping our Hope alive tonight.

Alive and kicking, Amel is the sort of news you love in war zones. Amel, a Hope baby. Funky Doodle, stop before you say, oh hallelujah, thank you Lord for saving our Hope. What comes to lap your feet where you stand?

Blood
Blood
Seeking the sought
A death baby.

The always smiling Pope has not heard of a death baby. He is in the White House with the President. The President refuses to imagine a death baby. And we can never believe in a death baby. Babies just wake up to suck out their mother Hope. We just love to suck out our Hope like our babies.

Why do you have to haggle with a muzzle halo to woo the empty sockets of your eyes? Hope is not fucking faint at heart when Boko Haram or ISIS sprouts. Hope never sucked her thumb in Guantanamo Bay.

Hope is not just a fancy hors d’oeuvre in your plate. Hope is everywhere. Hope is our rolling bucks. The light of lightness. The itsy-bitsy Almighty never tumbling down. And always searching for answer.

Funky Doodle, stop before you say, oh hallelujah, thank you Lord for saving our Hope. What comes to lap the map where you belong?

Blood
Blood
Seeking Hope
A death baby.

Debasis Mukhopadhyay is a poet from Montreal, Canada. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Snapping Twig, Eunoia Review, Yellow Chair Review, With Painted Words, Silver Birch Press, Of/With, Fragments of Chiaroscuro, I am not a silent poet, Thirteen Myna Birds, Foliate, Oak, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Down in the Dirt, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Visit him at : 

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