A Thousand Paper Cranes

Children fold paper
inside out, showing
adults how to crease
angles into life.

They align diagonals
with diagonals, matching
the leftover scraps
of a long, cold weekend:

newspapers, brown paper bags,
yesterday's homework wait
for a miracle,
for lines to form

a neck arching towards the sun,
mouth puckered
to taste the colors of bent rays
falling through time

until dust shatters
as the bomb explodes,
dropping pieces of gray ash
to annihilate:

what was there now
isn’t, is nothing
but white space
strung together by a small girl.