The Hill

Danielle Brodzik

At the top of

the hill, the light

from Utopia glistened

from crystal clear windows,

where men stood looking out past

their manicured lawns at the rest of

the crumbling city below. At the bottom,

blood flooded cracks in the sidewalk, bullets

created more bumps in the road, and bodies filled

graves staked with a cross, in memory of the nameless.

At the top, fathers tucked in their daughters with blankets

and stories while back at the bottom tearful mothers laid their

sons to rest beneath flags and prayers. Behind their walls, men

strode along the gold paths of their gardens, planting pennies

in the dirt and plucking dollars off trees, while the beggars

in the mud crawled around on their hands and knees

in attempt to dig up what has already been buried.

For them, there wasn’t any time to wait for the

flowers to bloom. Lying beneath the night

sky, they all wished upon the shooting

stars, that grazed the roofs of those

houses and struck the heads

of those with pockets

full, to be placed

at the very top

of that hill.