The road to my village is like a snake –
it will eat you alive if you let it.

These are the dead, the dying, the not yet buried.
These are the fig trees and the unmarried women and the beehives.
These are the women who weave trees into their hair and pluck seeds from their thighs.

The dance of my people is a dance of mourning.
I lay my head down and follow the road.
I am almost gone.

We are children.
We are allowed to dance.
We drive to the country.
We have a funeral.

The trees are dying. The trees the dying.

We run our fingers behind the leaves where the seeds are flat and green.

The leaves have eyes. The leaves are eyes.

The night comes in two’s sometimes.
We wonder where death goes when green is no longer a color it remembers.
We are almost gone.Adelina Sarkisyan is an Armenian-American poet and writer. She lives in Los Angeles, California, where she writes poetry and prose, hoards books, dances ballet, leaves novels unfinished, and romances the creative muse.