None of us had ever seen her cry before. Not the time when she hadn’t enough food for us to eat. Not after our school got bombed for the second time that year. Not even when Uncle got interrogated by the soldiers.

We didn’t know what to say. I put my arm around her and she quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks. We never saw her cry again.

the land where
the olive grove stood
barren and scarred
a woman stumbles
on stony ground

Urszula Funnell

is a poet and author who lives in Brighton, England. Her works appear in a variety of online publications and have won placings in a number of contests, including first place in the Tanka Society of America (TSA) Tanka Prose Contest 2015, and second place in Mandy’s Pages Tanka Prose Contest 2015.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Winners of the TSA Tanka Prose Contest 2015, a Tanka Society of America Fifteenth-Anniversary Special Event judged by Bob Lucky, content editor of Contemporary Haibun Online

⚡ Winners of the Annual Tanka Contest 2015 at Mandy’s Pages, judged by Claire Everett, editor of the Skylark tanka journal, and David Terelinck, editor of GUSTS: Contemporary Tanka