Bloody fingers 
cannot loosen their grasp, 
got left behind 

when their body was dragged 
off the field of battle. 

Bloody fingers 
somehow speak for the dead 
that haunt this field. 

Now fingers cry for words, 
cry for freedom to sign, 

speak the unspeakable. 

—After the photograph Mexico, 26/03/2024 by Yves Vaugeois:

Copyrighted © 26 March 2024 by Yves Vaugeois. All rights reserved.

Reproduced here with photographer’s permission from Facebook,
where he posted the image to Rust Art on 4 April 2024.

Gary S. Rosin

is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review, Sulphur River, Texas Poetry Calendar; The Ekphrastic Review; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). His poems “Black Dogs” and “Viewing the Dead” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.