Thoughts and prayers.
For every home destroyed
by tornadoes and hurricanes:
Thoughts and prayers.
For those afflicted by wildfires
and contamination from
rediscovered, buried toxins:
Thoughts and prayers.
For the underfed or the starving:
Thoughts and prayers.
For those who die in squalor:
Thoughts and prayers.
For those who live in make-shift tents,
for those who live near garbage heaps,
for those who live against walls
near train tracks, near broken shells
of buildings destroyed by bombs:
Thoughts and prayers.
Your parents died, your brother died,
your child died for lack of clean water,
for lack of basic medical treatment,
for lack of supervision while playing
in those previously sown minefields:
Thoughts and prayers,
thoughts and prayers,
thoughts and prayers…
as if there were a caring god.
Author Bio:
Tony Marconi is a retired teacher living in Ohio. He has published a book of experimental fiction, The Complete Works of the Literate Dead, and two novels, Toscotti’s War and Upon the Hush of Night. Tony’s poetry has appeared in The Cornfield Review and Grand Little Things, and he has had numerous short stories and poetry as published in various chapbooks and journals.