Men wearing wreaths uphold their sacred emblem -

They extend an olive branch.

Hold round-table talks on their next daring conquest.

Fill banks with our blood. Build forts of crisp notes.

Offer helpless smiles to victims of wars that they sell.

They empty the bowels of our earth for oil,

tie a string from end to end

watch our futile attempts to cross the chasm. 

Listen intently to the thud of our bodies

piling up in their holes of gold.

Plant poppies in our rice fields

then tut at our spindly limbs and bloated bellies.

Their honeysuckle voices deem the massacre of terrorists

 a riot.

As we are led to the chambers

and Zyklon fills our lungs behind the waving cerulean flag,

mothers and their children, hum a long-forgotten prayer.

They will hang.

And brittle bone peeks out of the ruptures in his neck,

as Agesilaus hangs, grey-blue toes barely brushing the earth.

in Vouves, from a firm contorting tree,

Agesilaus hangs from a firm, contorting branch.

Fat worms make their way through the gaping hole of his mouth.

And a swarm of flies feast

on Agesilaus'

yielding yellowed flesh.

The writer is a class 11 student of Cantonment English School and College, Chattogram. Her work has previously been published in a few online platforms, as well as SHOUT magazine.