Babies on Candy

Sarah Abbas

a bandit of children mistook a square speckled paper for treasure and now they are wringing out their knees to a song at a volume only they can hear. at this age, they don’t know of God but saw him in the woods snacking on the shell of a tree the core of the sun in a bowl of fruit a band of cicadas as the end of all days. who taught these apple-pie babies to spell DIETHYLAMINE to crawl up the same walls looking for a window to climb through they found it hours ago and haven’t stopped jumping out looking for exits turning into signs they can’t read they’re too young to have had enough already under the half moon’s googly looking the rose bushes that dance on command flowers will dig for their kin light bulbs will balloon and paint all the rooms green and lamps will chase them up the stairs until they can get the walls to breathe in the same lysergic looking.