Three Bombs

After Picasso’s Guernica

She never saw it coming.

Neither did he.

Her mother reached for her hand in a desperate attempt at survival

He reached for the brush, unsure of the outcome

She never saw it coming.

The outstretched hand falling like snow

Landing with a silenced thud among the other snowflakes

The brush grazing canvas

Each stroke different

That a neighbor

There the woman with her newborn baby

Those the twins she saw at church every week

Memories and people scattered

Burnt to ash

Carried away by wind

Forever pasted on an infamous work of art

And she never saw it coming.

There was no warning when the bombs fell

No warning sign when he stepped back and saw his creation

The airplanes hurtled overhead and left the ringing silence

of death in her ears.

A tear slid down his face bursting when it hit the artwork

Before she even looked up the first explosion happened

Her mother screamed

His brush soared, no longer in his control

That neighbor cried out in pain as his limbs were severed from his body

There, the woman collapsed to the ground

Ignorant baby wrapped in her arms

Howls of anguish escaping her throat.

Bellows of empathy coursing through each hair of the paintbrush

Those twins stood in a daze, searching for their parents, when the second bomb hit and they were sent flying into oblivion

And she never saw it coming.

People and animals running through the streets

Brush strokes picking up speed as chaos climaxed

Worry engraved into their faces

She was pinned in place

He was caught in anticipation

Trying to memorize every last detail of her mother

Who just seconds earlier was crying to her and reaching for her hand

Who now lay motionless, with open eyes staring up at the sky

And when she looked up to follow her mother’s gaze

His brush scraped the canvas one last time

The third bomb

That she never saw coming.