1996
In the evenings,
having brought back their livestock for the night,
the children sit on doorsteps
and tell each other
stories they sometimes hear after dinner
from grandparents
worn out from working the fields.
Now they watch them return:
fingernails caked with mud;
pickaxes coming out of their backs
like living branches
off the body of burned oaks.
Whereas the parents are away
working other fields
on the other side of the border.
It is from there that the river flows,
bringing grey water and irrigation.
For years, they only come together in church:
for Easter,
or at funerals
holding a hand tightly in their hand
– someone else’s
or only their own.