Live Coverage
Daily news is filled with images of death and disaster. As corpses pile up on screen, I try to scroll past or ignore the carnage, but am drawn back by my compulsion to witness what I cannot fix. The horror takes a toll on body and mind. Like the press corps, I try to contain my emotion, but there are moments when the fear and despair, the absurdity of the disconnect between news image and ads, overwhelms me.
PHOTO BY: MICHAŁ MANCEWITZ / UNSPLASH
I’ve trapped a hurricane in my left breast pocket.
It twists and shrieks,
claws at the metal snap.
My heart is sheathed in a flak jacket
but destruction slams in through a small slit
unsealed on the zipper seam.
On my hip I’ve pocketed a flood.
It heaves as I walk,
wants something—all slop and desire.
I keep my strides short because already
bits of flotsam twirl behind me.
Inside my jacket there’s a special flap
where I deposit the bodies
of children dug out too late.
Their stink permeates the Kevlar
of my stiff blue shroud.
My daily prayer is shrapnel-pocked,
my thirst unslaked in a siege zone.
My helmet says PRESS;
my tablet says Skip Ads.
