Not Today

A mad man in Colorado
mimics the violence
his victims have paid to see
on the big screen,
spraying their blood
over buckets of popcorn.

Armies of children
set fire to villages while
their generals,
(adoptive parents
since their kidnapping)
rape the women who remind
the boys of someone they once knew.

No child's body
belongs on rough hospital sheets,
but rolling in the grass at home.
Not linked to tubes and monitors,
but to swings and kites.
The minister praying as the line
goes straight, has questions
of his own.

Young girls who dreamed
of seeing the world,
would-be nannies or clerks
or waitresses
sending money home,
cry silently as brutes
spread their legs.
Innocence dies.
And hope.
And trust.

A boy riding his bicycle home
from the store,
proud they let him go alone,
clutching a bag of
chips and the aspirin
for Daddy's hangover,
rides into the path of
a bullet meant for someone else,
or no one in particular.
The chips are crushed
as neighbors run to help.

Each tragedy splashed
across the news
may be less or greater 
than another
but this means nothing
to the family picking out
a coffin.
Perspective will eventually come.
"It could have been worse,"
they'll whisper.
"It could have been worse."

But not today.

(c) 2012 Ellen Gillette