rearview mirror
images
echoes
a small boy
crouches
on pavement
skinny
boxes of Chiclets
for sale
spilling
onto his lap
knees pulled up
tears winding
rivulets down
grimed cheeks
wedged between
cars and concrete
clouds of fumes
no glimpse of
the sea
beyond the road
home
beyond the mountains
an ache
a mirage
tea and biscuits
on the balcony
hide and seek
in the old souk
ears concussing
cat meowing
no more milk
we keep moving
try to avoid
his big black eyes
reminding us—
our own sons
our own wars
and all the things we have worked
hard to forget
Kathryn Silver-Hajo
Kathryn Silver-Hajo is fluent in Arabic, holds a BA in Near Eastern studies from Harvard and studied in the Creative Writing MFA program at Emerson College. Her stories and poems have appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, New Verse News, and Rusted Radishes. She’s currently seeking representation for her novel, Roots of the Banyan Tree, the story of a young girl grappling with adolescence, family tensions, and her own complicated identity, in the midst of Lebanon’s civil war.
