Ukraine by Ed Hack

Ukraine

Not lawnmowers, but bombs exploding homes
and shops and streets, her world now gone to shit.
Her children’s lives at risk. No lights. No phones.
The last of groceries. No single bit
of her old life—that’s yesterday—remains.
Debris is all she sees outside. death’s near
as her next breath. She barely can stay sane,
but knows to live she can’t give in to fear.
The kids have knapsacks on. She locks the door
and picks her way downstairs out to the hell
all life’s become, the sky a threat, the stores
collapsed, some cars on fire—no dream, no spell,
this lunacy. They run, three kids, a mom.
The train’s two miles away. And then more bombs.

by Ed Hack

Editor’s Note: The beautiful sonnet form describing war makes the reader weep and rage in equal measure.