Breaking News

Breaking news
from another city, this time
one of ours,
full tonight with new war: dozens
or hundreds of brand new dead or
injured in an attack
on a theater or bus station
or another place in which we are unused
to seeing such things; tonight, we see them
over and over, splashed in
the familiar colors of our flags.

At the same time, in the same old war zones,
the same old bombs fell again
and the same old dozens or 
hundreds once again died or were wounded,
the same ones who are always dying or 
wounded. Their bodies are only rarely

shown, chalk-dusted,
red-splashed, pulled
from ruined hospitals,
theaters, mosques, wedding
tents. They look the same
every time to us.
We don’t even bother
to post pictures of their faces
and who knows what their flags
look like? Who among us bothers
to learn their colors?

I want to introduce our own dead
to their dead in some place
beyond flags, somewhere beyond
the rooms where it is decided
what is breaking news and what is
a passing mention.

I want to see if,
once they are joined
in the aftermath of
such a sudden detonation
of their lives, they hold each other
and sob for each other
as we apparently cannot.