Fists on Fire: Poetry from the Heart of the Revolution

September 13-17, 2001

by Sarah Menefee

for Larry Kearney and Cinnamon Stillwell

I lost my daughter
been said before

one is left in a rubbled place
with a sign: already done

on this
very corner

what dusty street in what
poor land?

ask in a rare silence
as my friend does:
what of a burned
child?

what worth
the pearl
of innocence?

what god
of bloody gouts
asks for the burning
of the child?

has already
and sleeps on the parched
ground
in a long-blasted place

a boy of eight
dead of pneumonia
naked body lowered
into a hole dug
in the rocky ground

into the poor dry
dying mother
oh mountains!

what poor
place?
where is a book
with sayings
such as in the land
of the blind?

asked a lovely young
arabic-looking
man

inside whispered:
listen

my younger
sister
went home
in tears