WAR
Lyn Lifshin
if I could not talk, nobody would know
When they came to my farm I said, “Do
you have children?” and when he said
“yes,” I pleaded, “Please think about our
children.” He said, “it doesn’t interest me.
Lets start.” And then 14 of the 15 men
were dead, their bodies covered with
straw, doused with gasoline. His face
once bronzed, not is lips reduced to pus
and scabs and bloody sores bubble from
his single hair, cheeks dried white and
black, bandages streaked red by blood
and iodine. “All the men were killed,” he
says, “their blood trickled down my face.
I didn’t dare breathe, smelled the gasoline.
The bodies on top of me protected me a
little but the heat became intense. I didn’t
know if there were any still there, if crawling out
would mean my certain death. Finally I knew I’d
be burned alive, I pushed the body aside and
opened the straw with my hands. That’s when
my face and hands were burned. I rolled out
screaming, my clothes on fire. I pulled them
off, stripping flesh from my nails, ran screaming
into the yard where I found some water. That
helped me find my senses. On the street, 20
corpses, cousins, a brother. I ran to my
uncle’s house, found my father, uncle, all
elderly men-they didn’t recognize me at first,
hid me in the basement, put yogurt on my burns.
I was conscious. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t
move my hands. A week later, someone came
to the house, put me in the back of a tractor
carrying elderly men and we made it to the border
