Black flies swarm in the horrid heat,
circle the Nuer mother and her two daughters
lying in the sub-Saharan dust of Watt.
Knobby knees stick out of skeletal frames
bearing witness to their flight from war and famine.
A small boy wearing only a string of beads
hunches over a gourd of relief corn.
His oversized head hangs over a protruding belly,
orange highlights in his patchy hair glisten in the sun.
The boy is too weak to wave away the flies sucking
moisture from his watery eyes.
A bloated fly moves from his parched lips to mine
as if to wake me with a kiss.

Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash