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About Alexandra McDermott Wilcox 

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Alexandra McDermott Wilcox received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, and in July 2016 she received her doctorate in Global Education from the University of Southern California. Currently, Alexandra lives with her family and two rescue dogs in San Jose, California where she is a​ Professor in Leadership and Organizational Change and Development.


REQUIEM OF TEARS

 
You must get a certain amount
of tears—a biological allotment;

like the number of years
I smoked cigarettes—two—

Also the number of cigarette packs
thrown to detainees in a Baghdad prison.

Six rounds doesn’t stand to reason—
The bullets thrust at new Korean recruits.

No.  Not 400 grams, the weight of rice
a person in sub-Saharan Africa eats.

I’m sure it’s more than that.
30,000 doesn’t sound right either—

the number of Syrian refugees
sprawling on Greek shores.

Nor 5,000,000 — the number of

children who die from malnutrition.

I know it isn’t 17,000,000—
how many people live on one dollar per day.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. 
We are the only crying species. 


But why, then, is it a surprise
when we see a dolphin

carry her dead baby
for days?


By: Alexandra McDermott Wilcox 



Requiem of Tears by Alexandra McDermott Wilcox Copyright Reward Publishing 2020