Vulture
       

I need to apologize to the dying children
with our bombs drowning your screams
because I'm dipping my pen
into the last of your blood
and writing beautiful poems.
And part of me is glad
to be writing beautiful poems,
please die some more.
I need to apologize.
I need to be a horrified person
but the person in me can't help.
The poet can't help.
As a poet I fly like a vulture to your side
thru hails of bullets,
like a vulture I can't bear to be parted from you,
please die some more.
l wear your wounds like a flag.
I bury you in my gravestone words;
aren't they pretty?
Yes, it's a sin to be silent
with the bones of the sky breaking thru
and a woman in a bombed kitchen
trying to put a smashed stew pot back together,
so as not to look at her dead family;
the broken crockery cuts her fingers
but she doesn't seem to notice.
I fly on the wings of a vulture,
I can see her face, we can see her face.
Yes, we must speak for her,
yes, we can help.
But yes, I'm sorry to be a vulture,
it's just that your blood tastes so good.

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Copyright © 2022 Julia Vinograd All rights reserved
from Poesy
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission