AFTER

by Roxanne Doty


A young girl stands amidst building rubble in Gaza. Photo: Mohammed Zaaboun/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images at Save the Children.



When the wars end

someone must collect

the limbs of the children

separate them from the rubble.

 

Someone must remind us

how much they resemble

our own fragile offsprings’

small legs that skipped

across the grass for the first time

arms that reached for you.

 

When the wars end

someone must patch

the fissures in the concrete

walls of our righteousness

fill the hollow chasm

in our moral codes.

 

And someone must care

for the children

who are no longer whole

and for those not yet broken.



Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her novel, Out Stealing Water, was published by Regal House Publishing, August 30. 2022. Her first poetry collection was published by Kelsay Books 2024. She has published stories and poems in Third WednesdayQuibble LitSuperstition Review, The New Verse News, Espacio Fronterizo, Ocotillo Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, The Blue Guitar, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature,  International Times, Saranac ReviewGateway Review and Reunion-The Dallas Review.

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