Plastic Dolls

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Those fearful airplanes,
streaking across the sky,
are not dropping bombs anymore,
but plastic toys.
Barbie dolls.

Never seen before,
starving children press them against tiny chests,
till an adult find the toys decadent
and obscene, demands them burned.

Silent children,
wide open eyes in which you’ll see the shifting light of the sky,
have seen too much horror to cry.