Naomi Benaron
Remembrance
Before I left Kigali
I went to the Genocide Memorial
to buy a purple bracelet
It was just before a grenade
exploded at the entrance
killing a policeman
My friends and I might
have passed the man
who tossed it –
I might have even waved
muraho through the window
at the moment our paths crossed
I said goodbye to my friends
and got on the plane
before any of us knew
The bracelet says
Never Again
It goes well with my green one
that says Darfur: Not on My Watch
But it is on my watch
And it is Again
and Again
............................ and Again.
Naomi Benaron’s short story collection, Love Letters from a Fat Man won the 2006 G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for fiction. Her novel was short-listed for the 2008 Bellwether Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Cutthroat Journal and Flashquake. She writes, teaches, and protests in Tucson Arizona.
(author retains copyright)
