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Poetry Spotlight: Untitled

The Commuter

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Aleatha Skinner
The Commuter

Untitled

“Breaking News”
continues to flash across the bottom of my TV screen.
I want to see and yet I don’t, but I have to
I can’t ignore it, act like I am not touched.

I reach across the empty space filling the miles between us
Arms aching—reaching but not touching the babies, the children
No medicine to ease the pain
No water, no food. Just life in the sun, the rain—
and despair.

Hold on, help is coming…I breathe the words
even as I watch life slipping away
on my TV screen.
He can’t. They can’t
hold on, much longer. Yet
they must. I will it. I command it.

Another life slips away. Another gets the news
it’s too late. No chance. Mama? Daddy?
Gone. Horror too great to bear even
across all of these miles.

I hear my soul
Screaming with the grief of hundreds,
the thousands, the millions who are broken
lost, hurting.

The sun will come out tomorrow but
who wants to look at what it sees?

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