Compelled by calamity's magnet <br />They loiter and stare as if the house <br />Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought <br />Some scandal might any minute ooze <br />From a smoke-choked closet into light; <br />No deaths, no prodigious injuries <br />Glut these hunters after an old meat, <br />Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies. <br /> <br />Mother Medea in a green smock <br />Moves humbly as any housewife through <br />Her ruined apartments, taking stock <br />Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery: <br />Cheated of the pyre and the rack, <br />The crowd sucks her last tear and turns away.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/aftermath-2/
