she told me once. But
waves in the ocean
on the back pages.
They are expected:
part of things.
"People get shipwrecked when
they choose life on the ocean,"
they say.
Never mind that
they were floating on life rafts
already
paddling furiously
when the storm struck.
When the blows struck.
When the sickness struck.
Never mind that
they keeps pouring
steadily overflowing
buckets
back into the churning water.
We have life jackets
and ways to measure
precisely
when a storm is coming.
We have evacuation plans
to share, and would
if we believed that
everyone deserved to find
safe, dry land.
Never mind that.
"When you sail into a storm,"
they say, "you run the risk of drowning."
And they did.
But that doesn't make us less culpable
for ignoring the swells,
the thunderheads rolling in
one after another
after another,
after another.
And it doesn't make them
less gone.
December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
