Autumn in Passing..........................................Sean Proietti

The family ran to the cellar. Near the well, the girl was on her knees,

head to earth praying to Allah. The hacking swoosh returned bringing apple-smelling clouds, Intoxicating, downing the pigeons to vast, grass beds. Silence once more like the last imagined symphony,

before the choking screams fold into deaf air. A yellow beam of light and dust streams through the seam of the cellar’s door. Seconds go by like lifted lives.

Ooze flows from the mother’s nose. Her eyes burning like coals in the outside pit. Through red panes she sees her parents twitching, roaches on their backs,

drool slithering from their mouths. Urine soaks their clothes. The air smells of shit and morning orchards. The old are panting now like race horses. Last breaths like bottomless, seizing gasps after a lifetime of crying.

The mother drops down with her baby three feet from the cellar door. Stone breaks teeth, dirt fills her mouth. The earth takes her back. The girl looks back for her mother.

Mushrooms of clay dirt reach the sky,