Yamini Pathak

ALT Words Left by Humanity in the Time Capsule Sometimes we gave water to our neighbors. Sometimes we didn't hunt each other. Sometimes our fathers were not brought out back and told to kneel until they kissed the earth they swore they once belonged to. Sometimes there was bread and milk on the tables and sometimes we remembered there was no such thing as someone else's mother; there was no such thing as someone else's child. Sometimes we remembered when we said you we meant the part of me I have not yet met. Sometimes, when the fires died, it was dark enough. We walked out and we looked up and we saw it: the starlight, the starlight that had made us. Sometimes no one lay in any coffin with seven braids in her hair— A braid for every year she'd had. A braid for every year. —Joseph Fasano