Ten Thousand Sparrows IV Confession

Their bodies would have been soft
like dough – I would explain that
I see myself squeeze each one
between thumb and fore finger
watch its mouth fall open with perhaps
a small cry and its trusting child eyes
asking me why.

Or I would see them lie
in the bottom of a machine –
a pile of victims,
a twitching holocaust,
bodies of numbers without names
relaxing into death.

I don’t know -
I didn’t want to know.

I went for absolution, saying these
memories got in my way of prayer.
The priest told me
there were three things:
what I remember,
what I think happened, and then
what actually happened.

He gave my penance - there
would come a day when,
confided with, I would
have to tell my own experiences –
how there is guilt,
how it haunts you.

And as I stand here now
with two children in tow
and two under my feet –
while waiting for this cleansing rain,
I wonder, dear reader, if it is you

because I still owe something,
because they never walked this earth,
still, my children can speak.