Before the stench is vicious
Sketch the corpses
Where the bomb has visited,
Where limbs and torsos roost
Obediently
And the vitals lie open
To frank but harmless light.
Resist the impulse of simile.
Art instructs us
To linger in the present.
Human hands assembled
These deaths. Stained
Fingers remain beautiful.
Blame God for dexterity.
Resist too the camera’s
Encompassing wisdom.
Mark by eager mark
Ferret this disaster—
The hand’s best work
Is to feel like the blind
Through the fog of suffering.
Do not fret. Do not turn
Away. Later there
Will be the valedictions
Of flowers and creeds.
Cries and wails will shred
The air but loss cannot
Be summed. Draw, then,
So lines can fashion
Feeling. What is blank
Can be contoured in black.
No priest can undo
Such persistent vision.
On that half face there—
The effigy of a grin.
0 comments