SHARAMANG SILAS
The Weight of Trains “I have gathered many consolations in life” —Yehuda Amichai, Ruhama
Apathy Your baby’s head in a cup, they say to you, Drink. Your baby dressed in ice, they say to you, Hold. Suspicion A man is guilty of murder the day he touches love. A child on his mother’s breasts questions his father’s eyes. Miracles Like a mother, I have kissed children born in fire. I have held in my arms angels buried in rubble. But nothing beats the boy in the air who failed to land like a human before his mother. Silence Abdulbais! Abdulbais! Abdulbais! Exit If your name departs my tongue, Abdulbais, I refuse my memories. Bewilderment Is this blood? The trainmaster asks three women. Forgive us, they answer. We cannot explain the streets flooded by a weeping race. Witness Across St. Anthony’s cathedral, the gathering mothers mourn their children leaving the same way Jesus was dragged with the wood of sorrow in Jerusalem.
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