The Carnivores
by Linda Rogers
say grace and photograph
the animals on their plates:
pink lamb and rare beef,
radioactive Fukushima fish,
so underdone they might get
up and walk or swim away.
Thanks and Amen.
While we name our martyrs, War
Children stopped in their tracks,
their flight patterns
are outlined in chalk
on streets where blood
flowers push through
pavement cracks, bomb
craters, sinkholes and
holes in the ocean,
their souls transposed
to yearning hybrids, algae
blooming and poppies
growing in killing fields
from Flanders to Damascus
to Sierra Leone, flesh so
underdone we might be
forgiven for thinking
prayer or shock therapy
might get them moving again.
Linda Rogers, a Victoria Poet Laureate and Canadian People’s Poet, mother of four, married to mandolinist Rick van Krugel, writes fiction, song lyrics and literary and social criticism. Her most recent novel is Bozuk, a Turkish memoir from Exile Editions. Forthcoming is Repairing the Hive, the final book in her Empress Trilogy and Crow Jazz, a short story collection from Mother Tongue.