by Heather Spears
The poem walked out and it did not
know where to put itself
it entered the eye of a young soldier
and was extinguished.
The boot of a soldier crushed it in the road.
Several shadows of running children crossed it
it began to speak,
in the noise of gunfire it was interrupted
and changed into little pieces of sound.
A girl lifted it between her fingers
but it withered. The light fell on it
and was blinded. The poem wrote itself
across the back of a man walkingiInto the hills near Tayasir.
no one explained it. All day it clung
between his shoulders., it attempted to comfort him.
The poem was not adequate.
It began to be ashamed.
The man took it off and folded it carefully and
put it down.
He sat on a stone beside the poem
With one hand on his knee and one hand
on the poem.
It became dark.
