Poetry Report: Bangladesh Factory Fire


“how buying one
last orange,
to hold its fire”

Poetry Report 5.21.13 2.jpg

This picture touched me deeply. Humanity hardly deserves the dignity this couple gives it.

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Embrace


They say our lives
are worth nothing.
They say we are less
than pennies.

When we walk home
hands clasped
in the market,
just tired meat on
tottering frames
of bone,
I can still hear
these valuations,

but it's astonishing
how buying one
last orange,
to hold its fire
up to your smile
can silence all thought.

Nothing can be said
when your embrace
is worth a million years.

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Photo by Taslima Akhter.

Scott Poole

Scott Poole is the House Poet for Live Wire! Radio, a weekly public radio show taped in Portland, OR and broadcast throughout the country. He is the author of three books of poetry, The Cheap Seats, Hiding from Salesmen and, most recently, The Sliding Glass Door (2011, Colonus Publishing). He was also the founding director of Wordstock, the annual Portland, OR book festival.

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