Comparative Solace

A hole in the earth, her howling into it—she stole this
       from an article by Mark Danner,

then from a book: a woman during a massacre hides
       from her village, where everyone

is slaughtered, and to keep from being heard, she digs a hole
       to bury her face and howl her grief—

she longs to lie face down, scrape a hole and howl,
       animal, terrible. Because somewhere

her daughter will hear, will know the measure of her grief,
       so severe it won’t matter who sees her,

a grown woman lying in the grass off a path near the Black River,
       howling like a sick animal,

a dying animal, then sniveling as if aware how futile it is,
       whimpering as if death has come

and getting up and going home and fixing the salad
       for supper, listening to the news,

the deaths, the hollow hope and promises,
       the suffering so vast it’s bound to mute her own.

Lynne Knight | Interlude: What It Might Mean to Be the Other
Mudlark Contents | Mudlark Chap No. 66 (2018)