by Bunkong Tuon
A piercing cry haunts the metro,
In the apartment building, in the dark.
Fear is a new word that’s given form in
This cry of a child, in the terrible terror
A father must feel when he sees
Tanks and soldiers on the streets of his childhood,
In the hug of a mother, maybe a grandmother
Who holds the child as tightly as she can.
What else is there to say?
Everything seems trivial, unwise.
I send money through the links on NPR.
I send letters to elected officials.
I write poems like this one.
I do what I can to lessen my helplessness,
To soften the child’s piercing cry that
Haunts my days and nights.
I hold my kids as tightly as
They allow me.
Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of Gruel and And So I Was Blessed (both published by NYQ Books), The Doctor Will Fix It (Shabda Press), and Dead Tongue (a chapbook with Joanna C. Valente, Yes Poetry). He teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.