That That Cannot Be Fixed

For fifteen hundred years
two un-Islamic Buddhas
stood on a cliff
in Bamiyan, Afghanistan
until 2001 when the Taliban
destroyed them with TNT
 
If the Two Buddhas
were still in Afghanistan
I'd never see them
 
Yet I see that
that cannot
be seen
 
Two Buddhas
Two Towers

Without

I cannot imagine
Eavan Boland without
magenta swerves
W.S. Merwin without
diffident music
Emily Dickinson without
a dissonant message
 
I can live without
a Roman lacrymatory
a tear-shaped flask
that traps the spill of an eye
 
The truth is I don't own one
but I read about it
in yesterday's Times
Now I can't live
without the idea

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© Copyright, 2013, Ann Holmes.
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