Wage, Wound, War
written by: Lori Heninger
@LoriSearobin
She never spoke about naps,
not during the war or after, too much
to prepare in the raw moment,
the skinned animal in the street
emerging from the smoke of explosion,
and when it cleared the sights! Bricks
and shattered glass glints, shines sharp as razors,
on all the wrong planes—horizontal, not the vertical
sun blocking sides they were;
chalky, ashy squares, buildings gutted,
she saw through to basement abutting basement
and in the distance, trees and craters,
wounded earth now Changed, different
from the inch beyond its cratered rim.
And the fields, the plowed fields
also changed: the blown tractor, bits of red
metal as seed, what can grow there?
she wondered, as if there were something to grow.
No napping in the time of confusion;
no waiting, no voice on the floating soot
indescribable—riveting, concussions
yawping, waging over ear and eye.
Lori Heninger, PhD, is a poet, writer and nonprofit executive. Her over-30 years of experience in US- and internationally-based humanitarian and development work has shaped her thinking and writing; it has allowed her to listen to and learn from others with vastly different experiences and cultures. Lori’s chapbook, “Words for Women” was selected at Quillkeepers Press 2023 Fall Chapbook winner. Lori has had poems published in The Bangalore Review, Consequences; Colossus: Body and other journals. She is the author of “Managing As Mission: Nonprofit Managing for Sustainable Change,” and a book of poetry for children titled “Outside/Inside/Outside.” Lori has written for many academic publications as well as having had letters published in The New York Times. Lori lives in rural New Jersey with her husband, two dogs and a cat. She has a daughter and one grandson, and blows glass as a hobby. Lori graduated from Kean University with a degree in art education, Columbia University with a Masters in Social Work and from City University Graduate Center with a PhD in Social Welfare.
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