Epitaph
Dorothy Simmons (Melbourne University, Australia)
.
.
Vaporised.
Little boy, butterfly reaching –
Gone. Gone – shazam!
Wasn’t he the lucky one,
to be wept over, cute as he was:
no plasma puddle eyes,
no suppurating skin,
an abracadabra of grief ?
Hiroshima.
People with homes to go to.
Gone – Shazam!
Jet propelled skyfall:
mushroom glooming silence.
Weren’t they the lucky ones,
their scattered ashes prayed for,
their guilty cosmos keening
an irredeemable forfeit?
No interstellar vacuum,
no cosmic echo chamber,
no non-existence
.
.
Born in Northern Ireland, Dorothy Simmons is a graduate of Edinburgh University and Queens University, Belfast. An English teacher and published author (YA novels, literary journals), she has now resigned from teaching in order to write fulltime. She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Melbourne University.
