More than 90 people have been killed after a series of explosions at a weapons depot in Mozambique, government officials say. It was the second time in less than two months that aging explosives in the arsenal have detonated. —BBC News, March 23, 2007
Every bullet has a destiny,
each missile its own mission
forged for a greater purpose than
to fester in a boiling weapons shed,
poorly protected from enterprising thieves
and foolish children.
Why sit here waiting patiently
for Mozambique to forget her
cyclones, droughts, and floods
long enough to think again of war,
when we can unionize,
burst from this prison cell,
chase a taste of flesh and bone,
be all that we were meant to be?
Rita Catinella Orrell works as a magazine editor and writer in New York City. Her first chapbook of poetry, Stuck in the Dream Wheel, was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2005 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition held by Finishing Line Press. "Or Does It Explode?" was inspired by a first hand account of the explosion from a journalist friend who is currently working in Maputo, Mozambique.