3 poems by Carole Giangrande

Doctor and Cat
	Gaza; heard on BBC

It doesn’t matter whose side he’s on.
Forget sides. I can’t help thinking 

of this doctor, stunned, soul pierced
by suffering; how, dazed, he searched 

for his terrified cat; knowing the touch 
of his bloodied hand would comfort 

a frightened creature, knowing her softness
would bring him rest. In time, he found her,

cradled her, child-innocent; tiny cries 
against the terrible darkness; how I imagine

his whisper, there now, murmuring 
humble words she could not grasp,

hoping his voice, at least, could calm her,
hoping his gentleness mattered,

having forgotten what battle 
he’s supposed to fight, lost as he was

among the dead, holding 
in his arms inchoate sorrow, cry

of this earth, our grief.






News Loop: Hostages	

	1.

In the video, the child runs
into the arms of the woman
who will comfort her.

Over and over,
the child, locked in the moment
	before she learns
    of her parents’ murder.

	2.

In the video,
	the son keeps running 
		 to his father’s arms, 
wants to bow, kiss his feet.

His father says no need.
My son, my love.

	*

They must all be
	our children,
else why would we watch
over and over

pain too intimate
for the eyes of strangers?





How will it end? 
		      Trees are in bud,
not leaf, not yet. Pale skies vague with morning,
	jittery with birdsong, 
as if the whole world, staccato-bent, 
is trying to find the beat, the rhythmic chord 
	that might get the season going. 

How will it end? The reporter on the other side
of desperation says he doesn’t know, and if he doesn’t
know, who does? 
		            A lost mallard, perched
on a fence, crying to her mate in the grass. 
No place to nest, no stream. 

			        Afraid.

			        She doesn’t know how it will end,
	
			        The weather calls for a chill spring. 

			        None of us knows
					     how the war will end.

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Carole Giangrande is the author of ten prose works, including two award-winning novels, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (Inanna, 2017) and The Tender Birds (Inanna, 2019). Her poetry has appeared in Grain, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire and Queens Quarterly; in the US journals Spiritus (Johns Hopkins) and Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics among others. Her poetry chapbook, The Frailty of Living Things, was published by Aeolus House in 2021 and her first poetry collection, This May Be The Year, is forthcoming from Inanna in 2024. Born and raised in the New York City area, she now resides in Toronto.

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