The pupils were lining outside their classrooms for morning assembly when one girl suddenly collapsed unconscious.--Jerome Starkey The Independent London May 13, 2009
"She was only little," said Gulcheena, a 13-year old student
Of the school who fell ill herself moments later.
They were among 90 Afghan school girls
Unconscious and vomiting, possibly victims of a gas-
Poisoning attack on their school in Mahmud Raqu village.
"It was the third attack against a girls' school in
Afghanistan in as many weeks, raising the fears
That the Taliban are resorting to increasing vicious methods
To terrorize young women out of education."
Gulcheena described the gas as smelling like a chemical
Known locally as Mallatin, which farmers sometimes
Spread on fields to poison foraging birds.
I would have driven there if I could
But the ocean is no place for driving.
Just a little poison
Sprayed into the courtyard of a school.
Why are they afraid if girls learn?
would it also make them destroyers of songbirds
Who are girls that want to learn?
If meaning is in knowledge
Then it must be something undesirable-
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But look at the marks of the letters they make
Curled back as the foot of a bird in flight.
Listen to the click click of the cricket
In the courtyard.
See how the sound of it can be written
Queit as the ticking of a car bomb.
Electronic edition created by Megan Kipper for New Letters Digital Archive, Culminating Experience, Spring 2021