Explanation (Hiroshima)
by Andrea Cohen
You have to explain
to the new girl, you
always do, to the one
who means, staying late,
to scrub the stain
from the marble stair
displayed at the museum.
You have to explain
that the darkness is not
a stain she can erase.
Rather, it’s shade
and shadow, a stranglehold
that’s all that’s left
of a girl and boy who
sat on the school stair
as children do, and vanished.
You have to explain:
we guard the stain.
About the Author:
Andrea Cohen’s most recent books are Furs Not Mine (Four Way Books 2015) and Kentucky Derby (Salmon Poetry, 2011). Four Way will publish her fifth poetry collection in 2017. Cohen directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA and the Writers House at Merrimack College.
