Laura Zucca-Scott’s most recent poem to appear here was “Road Trips” (November 2019).

A Single Cry
By Laura Zucca-Scott

What does it take to kill?
To watch the life leaving
In a shudder of pain and desperation.
Is it the ire of a moment?
Or is the slow deliberate action
Thought and planned inside a mind?

Maybe it is just the indifferent gesture
That forgets who we are
And who we should be
A lonely cry may reach the sky
But what about all the voices
That have been silenced
Day after day
Hurt after hurt
In an endless cycle
Only we can stop

What does it take to kill?