Rachel Lynn McGuire

FOR PARIS

I won't do anything for Paris
Just like I didn't do anything for Beirut

I'm just trying to put my kids to bed.
Fold the laundry. Write a grocery list.

I won't do anything for Paris
Just like I didn't do anything after 9/11

I said to my friend during recess,
"Don't planes crash all the time?"

I won't do anything for Paris
I can't. Do you understand?

Paris is not just Paris.
ISIS is not the enemy.

We
kill each other.

I have it in me.
My children have it.

Humanity.
Murder.

I won't do anything for Paris
I can't.

I can't even stop my own children from growing up to be murderers.
I can't even stop myself.


Rachel Lynn reads "For Paris":



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Rachel Lynn confesses: "People changed their Facebook profile pictures to display the colors of the French flag in a show of solidarity. Other people were angry that the Paris attacks garnered so much sympathy while the bombings in Beirut the day before were largely ignored. I had a different reaction."

RACHEL LYNN MCGUIRE lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and three children. Her poems have appeared in The Five-Two and Five2One Magazine.