Poetry | pamela-hill

Katya’s Baby by Pamela Hill

Bread and spiced tea for those who wash their feet in streams. Where vines touch down and bounce, a chemical plant nourishes life round trees.

Children run barefoot through the dust near railroad tracks and shacks constructed by calloused hands with projectile fingers and polished nails.

Color cannot change the truth.

That damned explosion, damned explosion from years ago, explosion where the clangs were not from railroad cars, and chemicals changed a perception of color.

As Katya danced in a dirt-white dress to celebrate her wedding, the cows ran out from hidden pastures just before their eyes exploded.

And now, now Katya’s baby is missing fingers. She will not have polished nails.

Explosion of sad.

Can one learn to like sad, settle in, appreciate, accept and embrace the feeling of sinking? Take the heartache and do something with it? What can one do with heartache? Lift one’s face up from the gravel and see. Squint the daze from one’s eyes. Hate the sun. Love the rain while sipping tea.

Hold the baby and tell her sometimes the sky seems blue?

Flash Frontier February 2015: Whispers