Poem: Collateral Damage

It should have never happened.
The warehouse, where they worked?
at their first jobs, saving for children,?
and college and weddings, where the fire?
imprisoned them in the narrow passage?
with that single, blocked exit while they
called their parents and neighbours to save them??

?

It should have never happened.
The shootouts at schools while they called?
their friends and mothers and fathers,?
begging to be saved, locked inside a room,?
hid under desks, shielded by other bodies,?
smeared with their friends’ blood?

It should have never happened.
The attacks at the places of worship
where they came together,?
where they were barricaded?
and cursed and told to go back?
where they came from,?
while they begged for mercy?

It should have never happened.
The flaming pyres and coffined forests
and cemeteries of those who died,?
gasping for breath, scavenging?
for hospital beds, isolating?
from everything familiar,?
video-calling their last moments,?
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.)