At Least in Heaven There’s Food.

Poem

after Ghouta

 

She was building bread when
the building was bombed,
a fighter jet or gasoline tank,
kneaded to a flat cake.

Her dough would never take
shape, bake to a crust, be
cut and shared and filled,
wrapped around spiced meat

and veg. Covered in dust
that might have been flour,
her dough was lost in debris,
her world burnt before the timer,

before the plate was even hot,
so her tears score the loaf
of her face, the bleeding
wound of a hungry mother.

About the author(s)

This poem won third place in the 2019 Clinton F. ­Larson Poetry Contest, sponsored by BYU Studies.

Notes

 

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