Suffering’s Limit
As you set out on your journey to the night
When darkness comes and the bed beckons without sleep
Hope you don’t overlook the morning light
So inspiring and yet they needed you but could not ask
For the water, required you to bestir yourself
And you did, we did, as they trusted us, the shoots, the kids
—what choice did they have, so young, so little —
And by afternoon when we were full of energy and of love
For each one and everyone—we love you all, all, all!—
And neither daunted nor overcome, we did not abandon
Them at the brilliance of midday, we were there—
We’ve stood in these shadows before, we knew
We just knew it, but we were wrong, so wrong
Yellow-taped by the empty school’s door we stood
Guns in hand, teams all arrayed
Wondering who has picked them up, the children,
Who or what has swept them away,
Xavier, Jackie, Eliahana, Jose
Not the saving but the practice had become
The point, the drills, the alarms turning day to night
Deadly games for fun, with imagined friends
Rescuing the dead, not the living, has become the end.
• • •
Allan Appel is the author of eight novels including The Rabbi of Casino Boulevard, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers awardee novel High Holiday Sutra. “Suffering’s Limit” will be included in Be Wary of the Elderly, his third collection of poems due out this summer from Finishing Line Press. Raised in L.A. and a long-time New Yorker he now lives in Connecticut where he is a staff writer for the New Haven Independent.