The Old Woman (An “ordinary life”)

My daughter died a week after the bomb, its image blistered in her crow-black eyes. Two days later my son found me. Keloids covered his back and skull.

He crawled into bed and did not rise. Three days passed, and he vomited blood.

“Though I am dying,” he said, “you will live a healthy, ordinary life.”

The smoke his body made was white…

(Minyo echoes with the cry of a deer,

caught in a trap in the forest…)