Somewhere

 

you open a newspaper & wonder if the atoms in

your fingers as they tap at the newsprint can be felt

 

on the sub-atomic scale in Darfur, where haggard men

in sweaty t-shirts grunt as they unload sorghum seed, soap,

 

powdered milk.  They do not worry about the sub-atomic scale.

Only if, after drought, the rains will come

 

& if those are dust clouds in the distance

                                                      & to whom should they pray?

 

Somewhere, a suregeon removes an obstinate shard of shrapnel.

The gods permit this, as somewhere a mute old woman

 

(with begging bowl & tick welts the size of a dime)

sits beneath the shade of palms.  A straggling of soldiers

 

lounge in stupor at the edge ofthe mud-walled village

as women cook doura and bean cakes.

 

 

Joan E. Bauer is associate editor of Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami (Bayeux Arts, Calgary). Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, 5 AM, Paper Street, Poet Lore, Quarterly West and other journals. 

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