The flash announces the coming pain
In a language unknown.
A kiss of air
Knocks her breath right out,
Expelled so forcefully
It blasts a pocket in the flooding dust.
With buckled spine
Her palms and knees
Push against the earth.
A wave of nuclei collide
Into the child’s guiltless frame.
The boxed-in windows
Succumb to the quick violence.
Wide, asymmetric shards pierce
A mother’s body, trapped
By broken beams
Brought down
By broken atoms.
The frictious heat begins to render her skin,
But her body no longer feels the pain.
The houses bloom
Into large, luminous poppies.
Tireless tongues of flame
Perversely lick the city
Clean of all its order.
Written by Marcos Amen