A DEATH IN HAITI

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FABIANNE GEISMAR, 15

Shot dead for stealing mirrors.

---Headline, The Toronto Star, Catastrophe in Haiti, Jan 20, 2009, Pg. 19

While the temblor's carrion burn

in common graves unnamed,

you have a name to go by, and

will have confreres wail to mourn

your falling on brittle rubble,

mirror clutched as you would a rag doll

if you had a more innocent childhood,

if you even were a lass in pigtails

or braids or ribbons or princess veils,

and did not have to scrounge for food

or even think that a purloined mirror

is a prize too precious to die for.

O, Fabianne, would you have seen

a flushed reflection of the fairest face

this wounded city has haplessly hidden

in unforgiving debris of shattered grace?

Or would you have recoiled from scars

on scars that faces become inured to

seen through cracks of shattered mirrors?

--Albert B. Casuga

Mississauga, January 21, 2009