July 9, 2014

July 9, 2014

There are blueberry muffins

and strawberries for breakfast

waiting peacefully on the oak table

in our brick house on our safe street

often noisy with happy children

like my little boy, six,

who just woke up from a fearless

night’s sleep, unaware that

in the Gaza Strip, nine children

were murdered while he slept,

their families killed too, about thirty in all,

said the guest on the Diane Rehm show.

And with a thick white milk mustache,

my son goes still and doesn’t move

while the news sinks in,

and I wish I’d turned off the radio

before he sat down, before he could look

at me and ask, “Why?”

ready to understand what I wasn’t sure

could ever be explained.

 

 

DeMaris Gaunt

7-9-14