Homecoming

After a quiet walk through a deserted neighborhood, Ummi tells me that the dried bloodstain I’d seen bejewelled across the bullet-scarred walls came from the bodies I’d run kites with over these lands. By this she means the lives of my friends had drifted from them like the windblown kites we had chased. I closed my eyes, and began  recounting the spirits of those who’ll never again see the sky. Somewhere in the distance, underneath the bony glow of a half-moon in a sky riddled with stars like ice crystals, flashing and flickering, the muezzin calls for prayer.