Bryan R. Monte
Green Corridors
March 2022
Miles of women
and children walk
along the side
of the road.
Trains packed,
roads jammed,
cars abandoned.
They leave with
what they can
roll or carry,
plumes of grey,
brown, and black
smoke rising above
cities behind them.
They flee towns
under siege during
temporary ceasefires,
via ‘green’ corridors.
However, a newsphoto
from Irpin shows
two, motionless bodies
down on the ground
an adult and a child,
who stay where they lay,
covered with rose-printed
sheets or curtains,
a rolling suitcase still
standing next to
the smaller one’s
extended hand as if
to still hold onto it,
and a Mariupol video
shows a woman splayed
in the town square
pelted by grey rubble
after a rocket attack
on a housing towerblock,
her screaming face
and bloody torso
under opaque circles.