Delicate

I feel the delicate snow touch my skin

Though not much is delicate around here,

Men in uniforms with big rifles spitting Russian profanities at us.

Why are they doing this to us? Packing 80-100 of us in cow train like we are animals

Tied up in a single file line so you couldn’t escape not that you would want to unless of course you wanted to be shot

I look around and take in the poor mothers holding their crying infants telling them repeatedly that “everything is going to be ok, mommy’s here”

As though to convince themselves too

I even see kids my age I wonder what’s going through their head

I wonder if its anything like mine

I wonder if their fathers have gone missing to

All at once the train comes to a halting stop and of course they weren’t generous enough to be gentle on the break

I smack my head on a beam on the side of the cart and it begins to bleed everywhere

One of the officers opens the sliding doors and sees me standing there clutching my bleeding head

But does he stop and ask me if I need help? No. does he even attempt to look my direction with some sympathy? No.

Because of course nothing is delicate here