Arts Alive San Antonio

Like the rest of us, poets were deeply affected by the loss of young lives in the Uvalde school massacre. Here are a few of their voices.

I AM NOT ASHAMED OF CRYING AT WORK WHEN
I HEAR ABOUT ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING

By E.D. Watson

i am ashamed of not crying every time it happens.
by it i mean some guy with a gun goes into a school
a church a supermarket and unloads. sometimes I don’t.
cry, I mean. sometimes I am too busy. I am in the middle
of my to-do list, I close the browser, look away
because if I didn’t, I’d always be hiding in the break room
clutching a damp ball of Kleenex while a coworker
covers my shift, like I am today. people cannot live
like this. tomorrow there’ll be bouquets wrapped
in cellophane propped against a chain link fence.
there’ll be teddy bears and votive candles and photos
of the slain, we’ll click several dozen sad emojis
repost some memes about policy and change, vent
our rage, tag the governor, call out his cowboy ways
and in eight or nine days it will happen again.
we’ll call it shocking and unreal. by it, I mean
what I said before. The holes in the classroom door.
blood. reporters. crime scene tape. It hurts
it hurts and is it perverse
to be glad I am crying
it proves I can still feel

                                                                        UVALDE: The Children ask…
                                                                       By Caryn Leigh Wideman

                                                                       Why was the guy with the gun so mad at us?
                                                                       Why did the grown-ups let him have a big gun like that?
                                                                        Why are crazy people allowed to have guns?
                                                                        Why do they even sell guns made
                                                                                     for killing lots of people?                                                                                                                                              
                                                                        Why do adults like guns so much
                                                                                       when they are so dangerous?
                                                                        Why didn’t the police come when we called?
                                                                         Why did you let us die?

                                                                         Will you remember us?

                                                            UNO DOS TRES UVALDE
                                                                By Violeta Garza

                            UNO                          

                            an invisible hand
                            rearranges furniture
                            inside my voice box

                            it is the gatekeeper that keeps me from
                            screaming and stomping and ugly-crying
                            my way
                            toward infancy.
                            I don’t know if it has my best interest in mind.

                            DOS

                            tragedy
                            keeps flowing
                            and looping itself,
                            a twisted wire
                            that creates a new container
                            of air and anguish
                            everyday.

                            TRES

                            a shape no longer human approaches
                            with aggression.
                            we want to believe that,
                            in  a split second,  
                            we’d put
                            our love and
                            our bodies and
                            our potential
                            between ammunition and a child.

                            we don’t know that.
                            may we never find out…

                            UVALDE

                            In another universe,
                            a ten-year-old comes home
                            from school
                            with her “Most improved” certificate
                            in hand. She asks for chocolate ice cream,
                            her favorite.

                             The parent says,
                             “si mi amor.
                             lo que tu quieras.”