Change the bedding.
Rescue the last
clean shirt.
Heads on top
of each other.
Feet unshod.
This genocide
is yet
to tumble into
memory.
Garbage rots, reeks
under the sun.
Smoke rises
from
bodies
in
flames.
There's nothing impermissible
in the bunker.
What's the value of this blueprint?
Something quite other than
god-awful rumor,
guns trained on their backs.
Air-raids, rubble, fog.
Evidence heats up again, and again.
Copyright © 2022 by Uche Nduka. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 26, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.