Wednesday, January 08, 2020

52 LIES

by Julia Marsiglio




On social media I see the thunderous applause
for crushing bones under buildings
for bullets that close the eyes of children
forever—whose last words are unspoken
replaced with a cacophony of heavy
artillery, and the screams of mothers who hold them
under the rain of hellfire, and instead of running
count their eyelashes, one by one, and join
the dust, brought in rolling out from under tanks
manned by twitter fingered horsemen
who expected seas of sand but instead
colored the mountains with bright red blood.

The domes are imploding under 52 lies
all written by 45.
The explosions started at home—
on Facebook. Tic Toc. They don’t stop.
They are ours, but we don’t own them.
We watch them, like fireworks and we clap.
As flesh parts from flesh
mother from child
child from life—
we yawn
and we laugh.


Julia Marsiglio is a writer currently located in Montréal, Québec, who has been writing poetry and fiction since she was a child. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish language and literature from the University of Alberta in 2011. Her work has previously appeared in Montréal Writes.