Tribulation

Where is the grit—

Blood ninth circle red and crusted

Dust sent sailing along with the smiles of starving people

Lipstick, sweat, and tear stains

Open your boxes for me

Loose the dogs of oppression, segregation

Speak to me in tongues of constant danger and mortal fear

Tell me of the soldiers, of the camps

Of the jeering leering faces

Of the whistle and smash of bombs in the night

The immolation in the streets outside

Show me the scars on your skin and on your eyes

Those tendrilling down through the lump in your throat and pricking at your heart

There is a burning inside you, every soul of you, I see it

With the instinct of humanity, I feel it, even here

In the safe confines of my computer screen

And the warmth of my brand-new bedclothes

Many tonight will not sleep well

Many eyes will never grace the light of dawn

Lay the cruelty before me in photographs, in memoirs

In a procession of haunted visages

Grant me a shard of each heart broken by the camaraderie of your species

I will bind them together and carry them in mine