Allison Carroll
Indifference
Rest in the quiet,
silence wrapping around the head
like a cold, tightening towel.
Nothing.
Do nothing.
Something reaches in,
pulls apart the condensed chords of flesh…
trying to make room for a soul.
Allow it, though it will never work.
Shrug away the pain
not being felt.
Gaze at the ideal—morals demanding something….
Laugh.
Garbage Day
Today the trucks are cleaning the streets
in Dogo Nahawa. We who are left
line the curbs to witness the purging.
Silence. Only the bravest sing:
“Jesus said I am the way to heaven…”
I stand next to my mother,
enclosed half-way by the shelter of her dark skirts.
I am too scared to ask her
where my sister is.
The tension in the eyes of the
patrolmen with tall boots and AK-47’s
shows she’s not coming home.
The sound of the trucks’ wheels on gravel fills my ears.
The surging of the rubber goes in tandem
with my throbbing heart. Clean, clean, clean.
The trucks move forward slowly, painfully,
a solemn procession to a dark destination.
A tear slides down my cheek.
I notice a limp arm hanging off the back of a truck,
bobbing up in down with the bumps in the road.
