You are a coil hopping up a hill
to our celebration. Your other leg

is a memory among fuming tanks.
In my garden of reaching petals,

a bomb blasted. Houses burned.
Voices of terror and guns murdered

the song of the morning bird.
Fear of bullets and severed heredity

is a film blurring my eyes. You reach
the celebration. Blur brightens.

You reach my daughter, a necklace
of flowers over her battle gear.

In the cleansing light of the sun,
you wed away the massacre.

Mark Taksa has poems appearing in Blue Unicorn, North Dakota Review, Quiet Diamonds, and Seems. Higher Than Fear, his latest chapbook, has recently been published by Orchard Street Press.