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A young girl stands amidst building rubble in Gaza. Photo: Mohammed Zaaboun/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images at Save the Children. |
When the wars end
someone must collect
the limbs of the children
separate them from the rubble.
Someone must remind us
how much they resemble
our own fragile offsprings’
small legs that skipped
across the grass for the first time
arms that reached for you.
When the wars end
someone must patch
the fissures in the concrete
walls of our righteousness
fill the hollow chasm
in our moral codes.
And someone must care
for the children
who are no longer whole
and for those not yet broken.
Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her novel, Out Stealing Water, was published by Regal House Publishing, August 30. 2022. Her first poetry collection was published by Kelsay Books 2024. She has published stories and poems in Third Wednesday, Quibble Lit, Superstition Review, The New Verse News, Espacio Fronterizo, Ocotillo Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, The Blue Guitar, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, International Times, Saranac Review, Gateway Review and Reunion-The Dallas Review.
