Lebanon on the menu

A British minister once dined
in Lebanon. Late night. The winding
road from Baalbek to Beirut.
Delicious crunch in bread so thin
it's used as wrappings that you eat.

“So good that is, but what …” “Small birds”
they said, “just little birds in bread.”
He blenched, that minister,
a Scottish serious Labour man
unused to eating sparrows whole.

But now they might as well wrap
all of Lebanon, its land, the people
and their crunchy bones in bread
as tasty bits that politicians nibble at
well knowing what they eat.