We work until the ground absorbs 

our shadows, dirty the half-moon crescents  

of our fingernails, peel dried blood of

our skin. We sew our sinews together  

every time they rip apart and drown  

like soldiers in soil, without dignity. 

​

But you don’t even know our names, let alone  

how to pronounce them. You watch as we  

languish under dust-born clouds and skies stained  

brown. You fill your pockets and empty ours, open  

your maw and swallow us whole, fifteen thousand  

paper hearts crumpled and four thousand torn. 

​

Decades later, our descendants will claim  

witness to our work but find us missing from  

blurred-ink lines. They will struggle to dredge  

our stories from muddied waters and  

mountain crevices, as one by one, 

we vanish.