It’s 2010, My mother

Is pinning her stitched scarf.

We need to get water.

The fingers of the sun

Are reaching, the shade

Already has that feel

Like an icy glare

Because I am only five,

I notice that her hands

Are the same as the ones

She rubs our back with,

Only deeply scratched and rough.

She is telling me about

My grandmother walking to the river.

Her hands are like iron. 

The water is murky.

I think about the house

With its large multicolored

Tarps, Plastic bags,

Reminding us every time they

Rustled in the wind.

Because I am only five

The world was always broken.

My father’s face is pale

As his shirt, wet from 

Under the mediterranean sea.

When my father told me

The names of the countries

And which are our future homes

He hopes, In my dreams

All that is left is the valley.

Along the edge of the camp

But today, blinding Monday,

With my mother beside me

The sun opens its arms

The guns point toward

Our house. Everyone

I know is still broken.