“may God have a photograph of this”—oof. Just read Ilya Kaminsky’s DEAF REPUBLIC (@GraywolfPress) for the third time. It is such a blessing to read other deaf/hard of hearing poets. 
A page from the book DEAF REPUBLIC by Ilya Kaminsky. The poem is called “Soldiers Aim at Us.” It reads: “They fire / as the crowd of women flee inside the nostrils of searchlights // —may God have a photograph of this— //
in the piazza’s bright air, soldiers drag Petya’s body and his head / bangs the stairs. I // feel through my wife’s shirt the shape / of our child. //
Soldiers drag Petya up the stairs and homeless dogs, thin as philosophers, / understand everything and bark and bark. //
I, now on the bridge, with no camouflage of speech, a body / wrapping the body of my pregnant wife— //
Tonight / we don’t die and don’t die, // the earth is still, / a helicopter eyeballs my wife— // On earth, / a man cannot flip a finger at the sky // because each man is already / a finger flipped at the sky.”
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