Karl Koweski

Shrapnel around the heart
 

The boy sits beneath the shadow of the juniper tree, album splayed open on his lap. His fingers caress the pieces of his collection. A friend joins him an album of his own tucked under his arm and they fall into comparing favourites.

The boy proudly displays rusted corkscrews, shards of spark plug ceramic, two nails twined into a crucifixion form pulled from the radiator of a bus near the detonation of a female suicide bomber in
Tel Aviv.
 
His friend showcases his own crown jewel, a ragged circle laced with silver thorns. His father brought home from work, last week, pulled from the chest of a five year-old girl. You can still see the blood on it, the boy marvels, holding the disc up to the fading sunlight.
 

Karl Koweski © 2009