Edifice

I have before me a tourist brochure. I think it is laughing at me, the way ink soaked into paper can laugh. A way that is silent, malignant. It seems amused. That I have come to gawk, to gape. Where my forefather once cut down other people's forefathers. Like that of the brochure writer's, perhaps. Or did not. I must trust the story the ink tells me. For the blood soaked in the ground isn't saying anything.

the last installment
of our home loan –
father's last sigh

(Published in Shamrock issue 31)