Broken
        The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
                        —Rumi

I go to the market,
though many are missing
from their homes in the village.

I take the small car
and do not think about children
with no food or mothers
who want to feed them.
The apples are good today.

I buy a kilo of the red kind,
grown twelve thousand kilometers from here,
and place them in my basket.

I go out for lunch and listen
to one of the Americans complain
how her neighbor
has a bigger and better something.
We discuss the heat
and the film
playing at the cinema.
I don't mention
the tear gas late into the night
or my despair over
a son, back home, who has lost
his way again.

Isn't it important to stay empty,
to remain unfulfilled,
to be a kind of negative force,
or to become something broken
that cannot break further?
Otherwise, how will I take part
in the Life of this swallowtail
butterfly, born with three wings?

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Copyright © 2017 Bonnie Bolling All rights reserved
from The Red Hijab
BkMk Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission