Sapphire

1950 / Fort Ord, California

Found Poem (in the New York Times in an article written by James C. McKinley Jr. on Rwanda)

„The dead," the doctor says, „are speaking to us."

some skeletons will be enclosed in a glass case
inside the church as a permanent reminder

the doctors move quietly through the church in nylon
surgical suits and masks. They have set up an X-ray
tabel powered by a generator in a corner of the church.
and behind the building in a tent, a modern autopsy room
with three operating tables.
inside the chapel the bodies are laid out between pews
each in a numbered bag.

the killers worked at close range with machetes and clubs.
„You had to be looking the person in the eye, basically,
to do it."

the bones tell a violent history of their last moments

a few had their Achilles tendons cut

#467, a young man, about 20 years old
his left hand is cut across the kunckles
another machete blow
drove deep into his hip
through the ball and socket
and cut a good four inches into his pelvic bone
crippling him

his shoulder shoulder shoulder blades
have similar similar similar cuts
where his attackers came down
on his back
splitting it open to the bone.
Finally, there is the mortal wound—
a gash on the left side of his skull
that crushed the eye socket socket socket and
drove into his brain.
153 Total read