Poppies along a wall
A cistern where birds
Might dip their wings
Your key is all that’s left.

Once skies alight with birds
before clouds tight with dust
shadowed towns. Nothing left
but stones and broken homes.

children beneath the dust
lie silent in someone’s arms
Missiles dropped on homes
crumbled schools and roads.

Men and women’s arms
stretch out for soup and bread.
Alongside shattered roads
their faces locked in shock.

Not only lacking bread
eyes describe the loss
the emptiness of shock.
to bury all they’ve known.

Families mark the loss
In shrouds and body bags
of everyone they’ve known.
A landscape ground to soot.

Come now, count the bags.
Stand in the village square.
Walk gently across the soot
of shattered hopes and lives.

Your key is all that’s left of
stones and broken homes.

 

A native of New York City, Antonia has lived in Largo, Florida since 1989. She is a 2024 recipient of the Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Award. Her spoken word installation, “A Walk among Words,” appeared at the Creative Arts Gallery in spring 2024. Her craft articles on writing appear in Arts Coast Magazine.