Trauma
by Carol Hamilton

Our bomb victims,
with their heavy baggage,
went to Nairobi
to share stories with their bomb victims.
Stories there had corkscrewed inward
like heart worms. For two years.
No one had asked.
The man blinded by shattered glass
stood tall, his cane a prop, white-suited,
without a job, a new skill, or Braille.
Together, with greatest care and precision,
tweezers sterilized,
they pulled off layer after layer
of cloth burned into flesh,
a sticky and painful procedure.
Like ghosts pictured rising
from the graves at midnight,
their losses lifted,
breathed deeply once
before curling up again to settle in
for the long winter of grief.