A girl too young to be a prison guard
her features sweet, her face so full of glee
she leans against a corpse: iniquity!
"A photo op, no more" -- how very smart,
she will impress her friends with ghoulish art.
Those naked men bereft of dignity
and she with fingers spelling victory.
How clever to be playing such a part.
I'm cold. This strange lack of humanity
so frightening, because when all is said
she is still part of me: an evil child
unable to relate. What vanity
were I to judge -- to separate, instead
of feeling sorrow: "she is part of me."
Comments: Renata wrote this sonnet in 2008, in reaction to the film documentary "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." About the documentary, Renata writes: "The girl I speak about in my sonnet was positively unreal. I think I remember that she was given a prison sentence of nine years. What that will do for her I can't fathom."
