You may never stop asking so I will tell you
We were hunted like prey and forced
to sleep under trees with the snakes
My father was adept with a spear, though
there wasn’t enough game in the world
to sate us, so we ate roots and bugs
while sitting around a sputtering fire
There was a single key that hung from
a string in the sky but no doors
Maria Dylan Himmelman has work appearing or forthcoming in Grist, Antioch Review, Western Humanities Review, New Ohio Review, and DIAGRAM, among others. She lives in New York City.