Poetry from Bryan Blanchard: “Pillar of Salt” and “The Mannequin”

Pillar of Salt

Raining fire, burning steel …
And now I see haunted

Images of headless
Bodies bathed in bloodstained

Sand of a mannequin
Head with a swollen face

And lifeless eyes looking
Back at an explosion,

A disfigured Humvee
Staggering down the road,

A charred and gaping door,
A torso hanging out –

Sketch by Sarah Blanchard


The Mannequin

I am not a mannequin!
I am a pillar of salt!
I am the salt of the earth!
My heart is heavy with sand.

An earlier version of “Pillar of Salt” appeared in O-Dark-Thirty, March 11, 2013.