CHILDREN {a poem}
Image source: www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60776929
Outside the Drama Theater of Mariupol
the word Д Е Т И in large letters visible
from the sky – CHILDREN.
There are CHILDREN here beneath
this red rooftop, CHILDREN here
beneath the rubble after they bombed
the building anyway, CHILDREN
frightened, injured, traumatized, killed.
Not only did this not stop
the attack from happening,
the Russian military is seeking out civilians:
hospitals, bread lines, botanical gardens,
apartment buildings, metro stations.
The pregnant woman on the stretcher
who cried, "Kill me now!"
(She died. She never met her CHILD.)
My CHILDREN go about their lives –
spring break, summer internships,
frisbee team tryouts.
I do not write CHILDREN in my driveway
with white chalk. But if we were at war
and it came to that,
it would not matter.
The bombs keep falling. CHILDREN
keep losing – their homes, their families,
their schools, their futures, their lives.
The ones who survive will experience
lifetimes of trauma, an endless price
for one man's insatiable hunger
for power.