CHROMOSOME

by Darcie Whelan-Kortan

We heard no sound

as they jumped

from a hundred and more

flights up

Just a simple

 

toss

 

of body into air

 

And from our vantage point

below the smoldering towers

through the lens

to somber houses

across thousands of miles

as they fell

they all looked the same—

 

no clothes

no faces

no fear

 

Just a black outline

two arms and two legs

joined in the center

like the wiggling X

of a chromosome

a single, unseen, unnamed

living piece in the code

of who we are

lost forever

Darcie Whelan-Kortan has published in Motherwell and wrote the column Beyond Broken for Literary Mama. She is a featured writer on Medium. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College.

SEPTEMBER

by Shirani Rajapakse

Image source: Wikipedia

Remember, you said, that day. People
falling from the sky like stars,
burnt out flares unable to cling on. Fire

in the sky metal crashing above. Remember
how it felt as you looked up at the
heavens, the noise deafened

and the dust from the stars crumbled
into your eyes. Horrorstruck, was this the end?
Remember the smell, flesh, iron roasting

cheap like a giant barbecue in the sky
while all around the grey dust of construction
falling like haze on an early morn.

You screamed but no one
heard amidst the noise of a world gone mad.
You cried in vain for what you

couldn’t hold, then forgot as
the years flashed by and they made plans anew
leaving you out of it. No use to no one

anymore.  Remember how you forgot
it all, buried in your life, the chores, the rush
and swirl of work, the demands

of modernity. Remember how she felt falling,
burning, crying. But do remember
how a madman rose in the sky

one day to steal the future leaving her
with tears and nothing else except a few
burnt out shreds. Remember.


Shirani Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan poet and author. She won the Cha “Betrayal” Poetry Contest 2013. Her collection of short stories, Breaking News (Vijitha Yapa 2011) was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award. Shirani’s work appears or is forthcoming in Linnet’s Wings, Channels, Spark, Berfrois, Poets Basement, Earthen Lamp Journal, Asian Cha, Dove Tales, Buddhist Poetry Review, About Place Journal, Skylight 47, The Smoking Poet, New Verse News, The Occupy Poetry Project and anthologies Poems for Freedom, Voices Israel Poetry Anthology 2012, Song of Sahel, Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, World Healing World Peace and Every Child Is Entitled to Innocence.