Whether to cry out in answer to <br />My father’s strangled cries <br />as he shifts bricks above my head, <br />or whether to keep silent, holding back <br />this dust with clamped lips. I lie <br />sealed in and cannot choose. <br /> <br />If I speak, death will steal my breath <br />seeping in at the mouth; <br />if I choose silence he may go away <br />and weep, and never know how close <br />my grave or how I longed to answer. <br /> <br />Someone flutes powder from my face. <br />I feel warm breath. My eyelids move: <br />Their flutter fills my eyes with grit. <br />Weight lifts from my chest and arms <br />and inch by inch I live again. <br /> <br />In my father’s arms <br />I cannot find strength to haul up <br />words from my darkness.<br /><br />Angela Topping<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/after-the-earthquake-2/
