I think of all the ways
the world seems to end.
I think of the traumatized
girl in the news: sixteen
as the soldiers gunpoint
gathered the men & shot
her husband in the head
as she watched, clutching
her baby; then more than any
one could bear: the women
forced to the river; she fought
as they grabbed her (screaming)
son & threw him into a fire; she
didn’t smell him burn (thank god);
because she was taken away
& gang-raped to death; still
she woke; everyone she knew
was dead. What does it mean
to survive horror like that?
And how, now, does she live:
in a camp, a refugee, having
lost her country too…
Do we still call it living when
there’s nothing left to lose?
I think of all the ways
the world could end: threat of
nuclear war or the warming
sun exploding. I think of
this girl and a discarded
belief in heaven.
READ MORE
Rohingya Recount Atrocities: ‘They Threw My Baby in the Fire’ [New York Times]
Satellite Images Show More Than 200 Rohingya Villages Burned in Myanmar [New York Times]
U.N. Move Could Harm Talks With Bangladesh Over Return of Rohingya [Reuters]
Amy Shaw is a cardiology PA living and working in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She turned to poetry after the recent election to focus on the personal in what feels like a world coming apart at the seams.
