Those little girls did not go home
That day from school and learnt a truth
They could not tell anyone they knew
Think of the mothers who cannot fill
The screaming absences left behind
Heard above the wail of air-raid sirens
At night they wake from fitful sleep
Thinking they heard those little steps
Patter again like rain around the house
The full moon often wears her round face
That when it wanes there is a dying again --
Tyrants who weep that girls are in chador
Hardly wince when sending them shrouds.
