exile

My son was born without the power of speech,
the secret police beat me while he was still
in the womb. Hassan's belly button disappeared
as he grew older and he painted a cave of winds
(a reference to his family I believe) on a butterfly's
wings, when Hassan slept a flower grew where his 
belly button used to be and the butterfly would rest 
on the flower as he slept.
 
The photographs taken of the bombed village we left
slept then blinked woken by desert storms hammering
the shack. I saw a gun balanced on the flower as Hassan
slept and it began to talk of a butterfly choking on the
vapors of war and surviving. My thoughts became formless
like the wind. I wrote our names on two sheets of paper
throwing them into the night like two abandoned wings.