the ficus my three-year old screamed
when she saw on TV a fine specimen of the kind
being blasted out the top floor of a Beirut building

to human casualties she was accustomed by then
and thus tended to take them
with a good measure of equanimity

but was shaken to the core by the death of a rubber plant
very much like that in the living room
against which she liked to measure her height

 © Iris Dan

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