Hours before dawn,
we gather around a bonfire;
the Mediterranean watches me from the west,
the rubble of our lives rises from the east.
A buzzing sky hovers above—
I catch the flicker of a truck’s light.
A swarm of thousands surges toward it.
I run.
I stretch out my hand for a bag,
my heart pounding with thoughts of my starving mother.
I reach further—
I scream, I push, I fight.
My hands plead for the bag,
my eyes fixed upon it
The bag is on my back.
My face is covered in white.
I set my legs to run again—
toward my mother.
Then I hear a scream.
It comes from inside.
The bag turns red.
I fall,
into dust, into silence.
