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| A memorial at La Belle Equipe restaurant, one of the sites of the attacks in Paris on Friday night. Credit Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via NY Times, November 14, 2015 |
But I don’t want to hear its ragged shots
of reason, the uncertain billowing of its curtain.
No explaining an ocean rippling cracked glass,
where faces have vanished under a sun
only desiring to burn, or reflect itself
in each thing it touches. There is no poem
rising from the soundless terror of hashtags:
asking for God’s ear, an illuminated tower
searches for satellites. Prayers. Paused players.
Foot approaching the bass pedal. Gunmetal.
I want to open sounds so I can understand them.
The words only thought in my head as I read them.
Like fireworks, someone says, and he was gone
and so was she, falling into their own echoes.
And what can I say, showing up in the distance,
with only tremors in my hands, still warm with breath?
Bayleigh Fraser is an American poet currently residing and writing in Canada. She attended Stetson University in Deland, Florida and plans to continue her education in Canada. Her poems have appeared in A Bad Penny Review, Artemis Journal, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Hart House Review, The Lake, One, Rattle and other publications.