Crawl

 

Christina can't walk. 

She isn't on the ground
because she's resting. 
She refuses a wheelchair.
See that house on the hill?
It doesn't represent anything, 
not sentimental reflections
on a happy childhood, 
or whatever. The distance 
is how far she has to crawl.

Vulgar fraction

I am a fraction of a person,

a simple, common, or vulgar fraction.

I am not a whole person anymore.

I am remembered only as one of many. 

I have no individual existence.

The unit of which I am part, the 1,  

stands as a monument on the ground, 

the virgule, the solidus, the fraction bar

covering the denominator that tells us

how many people are buried here. 

I am a fraction of a person, 

a vulgar fraction. 

(Written following the discovery of mass graves in Bucha)