THE NEWS

Nothing falls from the sky to claim me.

I am a bird with stones in its beak,

warbling an awful tune.

The news from beyond reaches me

too late. What girl has fallen now,

off what coast, into what sea?

Wasn’t the water already filling with blood?

Hasn’t it always been so?

These days, I close my ears

to that girl’s final cries, listening

to my daughter singing at play.

Elsewhere,

a mother is facing a truth

she will have to rehearse daily to believe.

While the news clatters on,

the hem of her life will be snagged

in the moment a child

can’t find her way back home.