Her face had lost its stare, as she lay motionless.
Blood, thick in her hair and painting her cracked brow,
Ran like a sacred river across the fractured ground
Into more cracks.
The picture split her eyes, her face nestled
In broken glass. The dust peppers her cotton clothes
And billows on, unconcerned,
Unconvinced, that this one is ready to cover completely.
Neatly placed, her fall, perfect; just the right angle.
Perhaps slightly jarred but no matter, its better
And makes for a wonderful shot.
The patter of rats, already aware
Of the meal that lays waiting there.
They’ll soon eradicate her and turn her to dirt,
And the world will spin on unhurt, unconcerned,
Unconvinced that she was ever really here at all.
The thrall gathers around, not for pity, not for care
But to stare at the girl that lies dead in the dust,
On the island that fell through the earth
For they must get the picture, the fixture, the prize
Is too good to miss. Snap her eyes as they clearly show
She is dead.
Turn her head, see her face, catch the blood on the floor,
It is raw; such an artistic scene for the world to admire,
To send down the wire and marvel at all of the beauty
Of death.
What is left for them now, should they move her
And show off the wounds that had broke her and sent her
Crashing to the concrete ground that is buckled and broken,
The corpse but a token of the desperate madness of man.
Her blood, no longer flowing so quickly
But thickly and curled through its journey to carry her soul
To the depths of the world.
The vultures that have taken their share
Are full from the meal that they savour;
The flavour of death is fulfilling. Unwilling to leave but a morsel
To those that may snap up a better piece of her flesh....
A distant gunshot signals the fall of another,
Her body suddenly no longer the exclusive it was.
As they scramble once more to the skies
What surprise will await them across these crumbling lands?
But far below still lays the girl in the broken glass.
The blood soaks her clothes as the world without recall
Rumbles on, unconcerned; unconvinced
That she had ever existed at all.
Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin
That she had ever existed at all.
Copyright © 2011 by Simon Austin
Inspired by the tragedy of Fabienne Cherisma.
Fabienne was a 15 year old girl from Port-Au-Prince in Haiti who, in the aftermath of the earthquake, on January 19th, 2010, was shot in the head by either police or security forces. The country was devastated, a quarter of million people were feared dead and the looting was underway. It’s believed that police were firing warning shots to disperse the looters when a bullet struck Fabienne – a tragedy upon a tragedy upon a tragedy.
But Fabienne’s end is where the story starts. Because once she’d been shot, she was shot again and again – but by cameras this time. Her corpse became one of the defining images of the earthquake. In fact, the image of her lying dead on the slope with oblivious looters in the background has struck such a chord that of the 15 international photographers who took her picture, five have won awards.
But of all the pictures of Fabienne Cherisma, one has really caused a stir – this shameful image of photojournalists just going about their business and trying to secure the best photo opportunity, absent of mind that this young girl has been left dead in the street:
