Hush Is The First Word of Freedom

(for Jack Foley)

This world’s soldiers pass
the cabinet in the shelled house
with our daughter inside, and 
one opens the door, lowers his gun, 
sighs a “Hush” and lets her exist

in that cell, the first one of many.
Cabinets infest the ruins, fill the city
with a child held within.
Their first word, ‘Hush’, builds hives
in their heads. They hum the same, 
the new God’s name.

They can scratch the other end, wooden,
until a lucky patch opens 
the code ‘Freedom’, the other world. 

.

Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor