The Sand Hill Review          http://www.sandhillreview.org              2003

 

A Bone, A Feather

 

Tiny charred corpses of sparrows,

Finches.

Who could have imagined it:

The birds were burning.

 

Thousands of people…

Tons of rubble…

 

Thousands of watches

Thousands of pictures in frames

Thousands of rings

Thousands of shoes

Thousands of eyeglasses

 

Other images and other ghosts

Crowd in and confuse me.

 

The only way I can

Fit it into my heart is to make it

Small, make it smaller.

 

One woman

One man

One child

 

Smaller and smaller

 

A heart

A liver

A paperweight

A bone

A shopping list

A feather

 

Esther Kamkar