Song of themselves

By Sarah-Maria Khoueiry

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun did kill us,

Its rays blinding in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

Babies born with hope in their eyes—they don’t yet know how they are reborn every two years,

How their world ends when the world stops watching

How the trees bend and melt every time the clock stops

How their faces don’t matter until they are gone.

Hydras born with no one left to carry them in their arms.

They kick their feet and dent the soil,

Their cries sow seeds in the land they awkwardly step on,

Their tears water it,

The salt crystallized above ground, protecting the sprouts.

For every baby killed, two will live. They carry the legacy of their parents on their shoulders and

keys around their necks and anger in their eyes.

Carried by a chorus of murmurs

Muffled prayers,

The apocalypse canceled

The world reborn,

They will see the sun rise and pluck olives from the branches of the trees they willed to life.

The key will fit.

Only they could ascend this way.