Front Page Photo

A woman grieving yesterday outside
a shelled church in Monrovia where thousands
had taken refuge. Many wounded, seven died,
and over one of these the woman bends
and keens. Someone has spread a flowered sheet
across the body -- swaths of bluebells veil
a face and torso, precious legs and feet.
The woman wears purple flip-flops, her pale
soles show as she squats and lays down her head
as if she'd like to cry herself to sleep
on this blue floral field, this freshly made bed
that was someone she loved.
I think: whose sheet?
Who used her clean laundry to cover the dead?
Who else, watching this woman, saw herself instead?






Originally published in Poet Lore, Spring/Summer 2006.