Epigraph for “Rose Window”

Recursion in programming is a process where a function (a block of code that performs a specific task) calls itself repeatedly until a specific condition, called the base case (a condition that stops the function from calling itself), is met. Each cycle processes a smaller part of the whole, gradually reducing the problem until nothing
remains. In “Rose Window”, recursion is a chilling metaphor for systematic loss, where each recursive call represents the erasure of a child, a home, or a memory.

Programming keywords in the poem that mirror this technical process:
 • length checks the number of remaining children, symbolising how many lives are left to count.
 • shift() removes the first child from the array, representing lives taken in sequence.
 • delete() is used to erase a child’s name from the “ledger of the living”, signifying the total erasure of existence.
 • return halts the process when the list is empty, reflecting the grim end when no one is left to remember.

Rose Window
“and the cherries, blackberries, raspberries
avocados and carrots are a rose window” – Alicia Suskin

The cherries are the spilt pomegranate hearts,
strewn where the fruit stand
once stood
The blackberries, torn veils of a mother’s grief,
clinging to smoke-stained skies too thick for light.
The rusted swings of Al-Bureij sag beneath the weight of loss
handprints too small to fetch the skies.
Before this, a blueprint of erasure is whittled upon the silence of a boardroom.
The logic was simple
count the children, subtract the children,
iterate until the land forgets her laughter
function genocide(gaza) {
while (gaza.children.length > 0) {
let child = gaza.children.shift();
obliterate(child);
collapse(gaza.homes, gaza.schools);
}
return ‘a mother tucked into her womb’;
}

The base case is always the smallest—a child
torn from a mother’s arms, dust mapping
the absence of skin, their face rewrites itself
as rebounds that cling to the dregs of a place once known as home.
The mother watches
her womb becomes a ledger crossed off with her children’s names,
Yousef, Jana, Khaled, Fara, as if they were debts to be erased.
This completes the syntax of annihilation—children become variables, home becomes void.
A loop that terminates only when there is no one else left to name.

function obliterate(child) {
    markTarget(child);
delete(child.name from the ledger of the living, into dust);
// return child to smoke;
}
The first one she lost, she called a martyr—
a child still learning his letters
became smoke that carried his giggles away.
The second, a wound.
The third, the silence between prayers.
The fourth, the mathematician—
his body one of his own chaotic equations.
No avocados here,
no ripeness to hold—
the recursion halts
when the list is empty—
no children left to count.

Ibraheem Uthman is a Nigerian poet, essayist, literary mentor and software engineer. He is the author of Mind of a Bard, Managing Editor of The Nigeria Review, and curator of the HIASFEST Literary Panel. A two-time winner of the National Library Prize and HCAF Excellence in Creative Writing Award 2025, he was also a BillWard Prize runner-up for Emerging Writers (Essay) and is currently a poetry reader at Chestnut Review.