During break in school, all of us
from grade four cluttered
around the monkey-gland
tree—its gnarled limbs
stretched out flowerless,

The cows I drive past used to be white on brown,
now just brown on brown like a ruined painting.
You have to die, I tell them in my head. You

Mothers run towards the trucks
and the soldiers, barrels-up
to sunlight, ride in the back.

They have never been so
hungry—

The government thought we were terrorists
because we looked at a house. White people
would never live in such a house, they thought.

My parents were held for hours, questions,
questions, questions.