VANDERPOORTEN, Vivimarie

Explosion

On the day the truckload

Of explosives

Drove into the Central bank,

For a long second

Time staggered

All sounds of a workday morning

In the city

Even the cawing of the crows

Merged into a solitary

Boom

Prism of fire and fury

Lives ended

Eyes were blinded

Retired wage earners

Collecting provident funds

Were crushed

Under brick and glass

The nearby vegetable seller’s

hands were severed

like cucumbers,

Women in sari

held their eyeballs in their palms

and blood spattered

the streets,

erasing memory.

Out of the broken window

of a damaged car dead

driver the

radio blared, unscathed

on a commercial break

a man's pleasant voice

announced

that big or small, insurance

protects them all.