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"Death of a People"


Ash of mountain

Silt river bed in toes

Rain pelting my bare back

I emerge from jungle

Bright light, orange glow

Thick air chokes

Unable to speak

My eyes blink, water

Voice vacant

Uncontrolled burn

Charred vocal chords

on tape, language stolen by fire

Museum aflame

Heritage lost in a breath

my people disappeared over time

stored in cobwebbed fire traps.

Footnote: Brazilian Museum fire 2018

 

Serena M. Agusto-Cox, a Suffolk University graduate, writes more vigorously than she did in her college poetry seminars. Her day job continues to feed the starving artist, and her poems can be read in Dime Show Review, Baseball Bard, Mothers Always Write, Bourgeon, Beginnings Magazine, LYNX, Muse Apprentice Guild, The Harrow, Poems Niederngasse, Avocet, Pedestal Magazine, and other journals. An essay also appears in H.L. Hix’s Made Priceless, three poems in the Love_Is_Love: An Anthology for LGBTQIA+ Teens, and a Q&A on book marketing through blogs in Midge Raymond’s Everyday Book Marketing. She also runs the book review blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, and founded Poetic Book Tours to help poets market their books.


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