Not sleeping
The children are not sleeping.
It is not nap time.
No red pillows
between their heads and the ground.
The children are not dreaming.
Crying for mothers
or fathers, to flip on the closet light,
to pull hanging clothes aside.
The children are not playing.
The sticks are just sticks,
as their hands are just hands.
No one laughs.
The children are not breathing.
The last prayer
passed their lips
like smoke that refuses to rise.
