Monday, December 07, 2020

Nancy Kricorian: The Survivor

Click to hear The Survivor read by the author, Nancy Kricorian. 


All this pain is for which of our sins? 
 Catholicos Vazken I, 1988 

In this dream you walk past
the school’s sheared facade;
from their desks the children
call and wave. A teacher
points at a map of Armenia.
The ceilings drop like eyelids.
 
You wake to another dream
of soot-stained faced around
a fire fueled by broken chairs.
You wish the earth would
swallow the rows of coffins
in the playing field. The living
 
search for what they want
not to find; their eyes catch
like hooks at your skin.
You should have been the
hand of God reaching into
the school--the children
 
could have climbed onto
your palm that would hover
over the town until the earth
was still. But instead they
line up to write their names
in the book at heaven’s door. 


Copyright Nancy Kricorian

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