It’s Not a Question: What Disappears

For several days, a dead insect had been on the windowsill. Maybe it kept trying to get outside, to fly free, frustrated because the pane would not budge until it fell exhausted next to an empty toilet paper roll. By the time I saw it, the insect had been dead for several days. It’s not forgiveness I’m seeking. I had nothing to do with the glass or how the house was built. Guilt goes on sale every morning.

These days so many things make me feel helpless. In another time, I would’ve swatted the fly, not even thought about sweeping its crumbling wings into my hand and sprinkling them on the soil outside. But it troubled me, stayed with me like a lump in my breast. Like the faces of Palestinian children floating before my eyes. This is not to compare people with insects. All life wants life. But children have become corpses like the faces of concentration camp survivors on black and white film. The same starving faces, those same blank looks.

This morning a lone woman sat in protest on a park bench holding a handmade sign reading, Cruel, Barbaric. She wouldn’t look at anyone who drove past.