It’s Thursday and time for another 15 words or less poem. Today’s photo prompt from Laura P. Salas was International Peace Day inspired. Sadly, my thoughts were more negative. The beads reminded me of an abacus and that lead to thoughts of the ghastly accumulating total of lives lost in wars and conflicts. I actually have a childhood friend whose brother is an internationally recognized expert in the quantitative analysis of mass human-rights abuses, like genocides. How horrifying that there is a need for such an expert.

Photo credit to Laura Purdie Salas

Without Peace

Quick fingers 
calculate
with slick, clicking
beads
Counting lives lost
Collective sorrow

Molly Hogan (c) 2017