Old News, New Wounds

Old News, New Wounds"

by Janet I. Buck

Violence as a uterus keeps giving birth.
When did death become old prose,
one bomb a full mosquito net
that multiplies and multiplies.
The front page, a grave among graves,
anonymous sorrows, limp remains
of ocean kelp clinging
to inconsolable rock.
The haggard face of Khalid Mohammed
is plastered on the headline news.
His acorn eyes, the tendered jewels
of writhing snakes still at large.
Hissing lips with secrets stowed.

What happened to reporting joy?
My stanzas follow ugly suit.
I start a line with butterflies
and end with nothing but the husk.
I watch mine sink like wedding rings
in long, hard colons of pipes.
Retrieval ought to be my task.
Waters of seas are icing my hands.
Another woman's son I know
is putting on his army digs.
She sees it as a sinful shade of green,
palette of approaching storm,
this bloodshed in the painter's tray.

Mothers all across the world are tight
inside this taffy pull of pride
and horror.
At Toys R Us,
the sale of tiny tanks is up.
The rising stock of hopelessness
that makes us arch what bows we have.
Children pose the chilling question:
"When is Daddy coming home?"
A globe of fading picotees.
Borders dark, uncrossable.
Torn white lace of coming spring
so evident in cloying frost,
I wonder if the shirt will last.
Who will slash the canvas next?

Posted over on Identity Theory