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Aleppo, Massachusetts

by Samuel Armen

“The only good about my city’s war,”

she replied, “is that we could see the stars

again.” In this safe of silence, the Boston air

declared the spring while we walked

across the park. Her cigarette blazed

comet paths along the darkness. Without

a word, all of us were worlds away,

together, far. In this wordless walk,

 

I began to sense whose steps were whose.

The twelve of us kept different sounds, known

only through this quietude. The haze

of lights ahead eclipsed the stars and moon.

 

We left the park and entered Boston, constrained

in blinding noise, squinting all the same.

About the Author

Samuel Armen was adopted from Gyumri, Armenia, raised by an Armenian-American family in New York, earned his BA in English Literature from St. John’s University, and completed his MA in Adolescent Education at Hunter College. He currently teaches and manages education programs in Brooklyn and across rural Armenia. His debut poem ‘Intercom’ was shortlisted for The Raw Art Review’s The Charles Bukowski Prize for Poetry and was published in their Winter 2020 edition along with his poems ‘Rooftop Junkie’ and ‘Waiter.’ His poem ‘Decimation’ was published in The Showbear Family Circus (Aug. 2020), and his poem ‘1915 Rewound’ was published in Issue 7 of Dreamers Creative Writing (Nov. 2020).

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