A Century Later by Imtiaz Dharker reads Elena Coppola
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A Century Later (2014) Imtiaz Dharker The school-bell is a call to battle, every step to class, a step into the firing-line. Here is the target, fine skin at the temple, cheek still rounded from being fifteen.
Surrendered, surrounded, she takes the bullet in the head
and walks on. The missile cuts a pathway in her mind, to an orchard in full bloom, a field humming under the sun, its lap open and full of poppies.
This girl has won the right to be ordinary,
wear bangles to a wedding, paint her fingernails, go to school. Bullet, she says, you are stupid. You have failed. You cannot kill a book or the buzzing in it.
A murmur, a swarm. Behind her, one by one, the schoolgirls are standing up to take their places on the front line.
