Faces
Last night I heard a woman sobbing several houses away.
I stared at the moonlight falling on my windowsill
and listened to the floorboards creaking as Mother drifted through the dark.
I did not fall asleep again for a long time.
This morning there was a dead body in the creek.
Mother scolded the old men, saying they could not leave it where it was.
Finally, they dragged it away just so she would be quiet.
Everybody wishes only quietness now. Even the birds are quiet.
Rumors blow in from over the ridge. Horrible stories.
Towns demolished by bombs. Families starving. Children dead.
Some say the invaders marched through the old nuclear plant,
kicking up radioactive debris, eyes glowing.
Sometimes Mother shifts the sheet over the glassless window
and stares down the dusty road, empty-eyed and motionless.
I know that she is looking for Father.
She tells me I must remember his face.
During the day I play my games in whispers and slow movements
as Mother roams from room to room.
At night, when I am hungry,
I go to the couch in the cave-like corner
and touch her shoulder
and ask if there will dinner…
…The bombs came first, with their earthquakes and painful thunder,
the houses around us falling to their knees.
People who were washing the laundry
or changing a diaper
or digging up a radish
were suddenly bloody and screaming,
were suddenly dead.
They entered our home through the missing part of the wall,
ducking beneath the drooping roof.
When they pushed me aside,
I fell down and started crying.
Mother leapt at them then, screeching and clawing like a wild animal—
The gunshot made the air crack and my ears ring…
…I crawled over to Mother and lay my head upon her chest
and listened to her strange, scary breathing.
The men kicked through the debris of our lives, eyes glowing.
I begged my mother to get up,
but she stroked my head and told me to remember her face.
[END]
Zephyr Dorsey 