because the world keeps ending & ending
without end & this January
the dead
leaves remain here
to remind us
what’s happening
because it keeps happening & there’s blood
on the moon & in the water &
on someone’s hands
because of our hands
because a kid not old enough
to drive or smoke or drink or reach
the top shelf
can still reach
the gun & shoot
because he will & the will
to bear arms is strong
in our country
because of bears & arms & children & all
their terrified animal bodies
because my son says
Scare me! & grabs
my neck & digs in & asks
for growls & roars & claws
asks me to jump out
from behind the walls
because we raise our kids
with terror
in their bones now
because Scare me, Mama! means
he is already
afraid & wants
again & again
to feel it
because what else is left
READ MORE
Reporter covering school shooting learns shooter is her son [New York Post]
Kentucky school shooting: 2 dead, 15 more shot at Marshall County High School [CBS News]
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania where her research focuses on contemporary American poetry about the Holocaust. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf and TENT Conferences as well as the Auschwitz Jewish Center. Julia is the author of The Bear Who Ate the Stars (Split Lip Press, 2014) and her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, and Sixth Finch, among others. Julia is Editor of Construction Magazine and when not busy chasing her toddler around the playgrounds of Philadelphia, she also writes a blog about motherhood.
Photo by Ryan Tauss.
