War Torn Children
We waited in long lines for gas masks.
Ugly green things that made the wearer
look like a giant insect.
When it was my turn,
a miniature version of the one my mother had just received
was taken out of its little box
and placed over my face.
The straps pulled on my curls.
I yelped, but my mother impatiently shushed me.
As they fitted the straps tighter and tighter,
the smell of rubber and petroleum hit my nose.
I gagged.
Walking home,
I watched neighbors climb ladders
and tape giant Xs across their windows.
The midday sun was merciless.
I begged for a cold treat.
We stopped at a convenience store.
The shop owner yelled
“lady, we’re closed!”,
But the sight of my exhausted mother
must have made him relent.
I got lemon ices.
Sour and sweet,
wrapped in crinkly packaging,
with bright yellow lemons printed on it.
As night fell, the sirens came.
The neighborhood went silent.
No old ladies sitting on their stoops gossiping,
no children playing in the courtyard,
no voices.
We sat in total darkness
so the enemy planes would pass us by.
My mother told me to put on my mask.
I pouted and whined.
My baby sister slept in a clear plastic box,
like those zippered cases that held
blankets and duvets
when you took them home from the store.
She was too small for a mask.
It looked comfortable.
I wanted to be in there too.
I wanted to breathe.
I wanted the mask gone.
But I was too big.
My grandmother lit a single candle.
It illuminated her face and made her look ethereal.
Her smile comforted me.
We gathered around her
as she read Psalms from a little tattered book,
pages frayed from years of use.
In the distance,
faint booms and bangs could be heard,
like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Later we would inspect the buildings,
crumbled concrete shells that once held life,
and play hide and seek in the rubble.
America promised safety.
We lived with my aunt,
her English husband,
and four cousins
in a cramped apartment
in south Brooklyn.
One Friday afternoon,
an ambulance hurriedly rushed past,
blaring its warning sounds angrily.
I jumped up from my homework,
the pencil in my hand nearly poking out my eye.
“They found us! They found us!”
I screamed,
scurrying to hide under the bed.
My cousins would joke about it for years.
I was not amused.