Excerpt from Peace Park Museum by Lee Woodman

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The following poem appears in our Spring 2016 digital issue. Download now to read the rest of Lee’s poem and the entire issue.

A fireball blazed,
like a small sun,
seven thousand degrees centigrade

Skin, like melting glue,
dripped off the bones of
boys and girls in factories

Small labels
spell out names
telling where they were at 8:15

Her son’s body
clutched a charred lunchbox
burnt into his abdomen

Melted glasses
fused to the ridge
over his eyes

Someone told her
Shin lay crying over and over
for water

Children in uniform
practicing their English
shyly approach

Clipboards in hand,
they ask earnestly
what we think of war

lee-woodmanLEE WOODMAN has had a distinguished career in the arts and media production and has held senior leadership positions at the Smithsonian Institution. Her radio and film awards include five CINES, two NY International Film Blue Ribbons, and three Gracies from American Women in Radio and Television. Her poems and essays have appeared in Zocalo and Tiferet Journal. Sights and smells of an international childhood, sly humor, and themes of memory and intimacy flavor her poetry.

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