Tags
Dresden, drones, leaf of flame, napalm, poem, Poetry, sonnet, the problem with poetry, the strength of poetry
No eye melted can see again: Dresden
fire rain a storm leaf fixed to a girl’s clinched
palm, held up against the sky. And again
bombs drop, drones in the mountains, a girl’s pinched
face turned. How many sisters have I lost?
daughters? mothers? aunts? ——Tell me, leaf of flame,
tell me names, faces. ——In the holocaust
to come, who’ll remember this face, this name?
No one. I shall huddle with my sisters.
Machines will drop fire on us. ——Do you hear
me? Drones will drop fire and you’ll be smitten,
or you’ll write about how all us lovers
are low dirty dogs. How the thing you fear
the most is the pain of rejection.