swimming in place

Two children reach for their mother as they escape ethnic violence and head for safety

Burma
Is a Bermuda triangle
of trouble
hopes brew then
the Good Ship Hopeful
crashes
into that mysterious zone
and dashes them

they shatter
into debris

the flotsam of lives swim
into murky water
people stand
in the flat steel sun
and watch their country
dissolve and
watch the colors of their culture
swirl into oblivion