Live Interview
You ask for a statement, I fill with question
pours in with news clips of dust blood cries,
prized rubble stuffed teddy bear, I feel my hand
rise to my mouth, I feel one word pulsing:
Why. Why. Why. Learn those stories, bury
smile under shoes piled, dead end rail, why
bear witness to evil twist glory, why learn
of Other, of separating man from child
from mother, of Anne Frank of Elie Wiesel, why
slip from the couch in Connecticut into the depths
of Hell is images of ghosts in bone skin–
black and white haunting for us to try on from
behind eyes hollow, tasting tears burrowed
into the heartbeat of history, like that clip
from Schindler’s List we pick up the ring, we
beg of our children–unknowing, unhollow–
not to grow into a humanity of whispers of
ones who will claim it does not matter, all
of this dust blood collateral. Will you not
ask me for whom shall they cry and if not all
why?
By Joan Barker
Biography:
Joan Barker is a writer who lives in southern Maine. In 2021, she penned a series of op-Eds advocating for US government accountability on the issue of vulnerable interpreters left behind in Afghanistan, a place she lived and worked in 2018. Her poem Hometown has been selected to appear in the upcoming issue of The Alembic. Barker’s writing is anchored in a firm belief that all people deserve to live a life of dignity.