Lucinda Marshall
Beautiful Children
The second son tells us that
the first daughter told their daddy
that inasmuch as she herself was a mother,
she was horrified
that chemical weapons
had been used on beautiful children
and so maybe daddy dropped bombs
on Syria to make her feel better
and I wonder if the first daughter
is at all concerned about
the beautiful children we have killed
in Iraq and Afghanistan,
or the little ones who
don’t have potable water in Flint
or the babies who live in
lead paint caked houses in Philadelphia
or the children who have been killed
by guns in their very own homes
and what about the kids in this country
who go to bed hungry at night
or the ones who have been raped and
sexually assaulted
since her father took office
and if so, pray tell,
should we bomb ourselves as well?
Lucinda Marshall‘s poems have appeared in Sediments, One Sentence Poems, Stepping Stones Magazine, Columbia Journal, Poems in the Aftermath (on indolentbooks.com), Poetica Magazine, Haikuniverse, ISLE, and elsewhere. Lucinda co-facilitates the award-winning Teen Writing Club in Gaithersburg, Md. She is a member of the Maryland Writers’ Association and Women, Action, and the Media. She blogs at Reclaiming Medusa.
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