Instructions on Surviving Genocide

In the study of comparative
trauma, it is important to ask
how much have you suffered,
and is it enough? Hello, are you still
breathing? No, this is not the time
to speak of boots and grenades.
Just nod if you want to be counted.

Courtroom exhibit one: Make way
for the man with the funny moustache.
Gosh, there are so many of them.
Our enemies slip infertility pills into
samosas so we must be vigilant.
Your family was wiped out? Come.
There’s a seat for you on the truck.

Remember, cities rise and fall
just as names of streets change
from uppity colonial settler to local
yogalord. In any event, refuse to be
devoured. Do not mess with the birth-
places of gods. Most massacres being
propagated by god-whisperers.

Meanwhile, a woman in the square
shouts about how there are many ways
of taking a stand. The way she chooses
is naked, with one leg here, the other there.
Are you scared? They’ll stuff her mouth
and make her watch, subdue her
ethnically recalcitrant womb,

and despite all footage, the event
will be blurred from the nation’s memory
span. Do not believe those who say it was
wonderful before the war. Listen instead
to those saying, get out, get out while you can.
They work the streets, exhuming bodies,
finding safety pins instead of buttons.

There was a grand theatre here,
a library, houses with balconies. This was
a good place with good people. Fathers were
weavers of rugs. They passed down secrets
through needles as if they already knew a day
would come when all the able-bodied men
would be taken away. The women…

What more can be said about women?
Leave it. If…

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