The azaleas and cotton flowers are blooming again,
their crimson mirrored on the pavements
and roads and school halls and libraries
and rooftops and warehouses and restaurants
and grocery stores and temples and churches바카라 웹사이트
and mosques and gurudwaras around the world.
It should have never happened.
The warehouse, where they worked바카라 웹사이트
at their first jobs, saving for children,바카라 웹사이트
and college and weddings, where the fire바카라 웹사이트
imprisoned them in the narrow passage바카라 웹사이트
with that single, blocked exit while they
called their parents and neighbours to save them?바카라 웹사이트
바카라 웹사이트
It should have never happened.
The shootouts at schools while they called바카라 웹사이트
their friends and mothers and fathers,바카라 웹사이트
begging to be saved, locked inside a room,바카라 웹사이트
hid under desks, shielded by other bodies,바카라 웹사이트
smeared with their friends’ blood?
It should have never happened.
The attacks at the places of worship
where they came together,바카라 웹사이트
where they were barricaded바카라 웹사이트
and cursed and told to go back바카라 웹사이트
where they came from,바카라 웹사이트
while they begged for mercy?
It should have never happened.
The flaming pyres and coffined forests
and cemeteries of those who died,바카라 웹사이트
gasping for breath, scavenging바카라 웹사이트
for hospital beds, isolating바카라 웹사이트
from everything familiar,바카라 웹사이트
video-calling their last moments,바카라 웹사이트
while the Neros kept fiddling?
It should have never happened.
(Jonaki Ray was educated as a scientist, worked as a software engineer (briefly), and is now a poet, writer, and editor. Her poetry collection, Firefly Memories, is forthcoming from Copper Coin later this year.)
