Choir

Eleanor Lee `21

when we sing that glorious chord,

we are flashlights

that flicker on

one-by-one,

then fifty-by-fifty,

until we all beam

a quivering

             yellow-white ray

onto the sleeping children and

       the shiny-eyed parents,

revealing

broken bodies and splintered minds,

our precious light diving

into the purple-red pool of

cuts and bruises, and bringing up

drowning boys and women, sputtering and gulping

into the merry, dancing air,

       until our fragile light

flutters

out of existence.