Day 1,032

with thanks again to Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo

Close to the yellow line
a man is building a house
of clay. Adobe. Outside
the temperature is uncomfortably
hot; when you walk into
his adobe hut, it’s cool. Dark.
Every day he goes out, his donkey
pulling a cart, to the place
on the other side
of the line
where the mud is better.
He goes, knowing
full well what
he’s risking: nothing less
than his life,
the donkey’s. But this mud
not long ago
used to be his; used to be
something he could dig
freely, whenever
he chose; now
he must go
(after dark? before dawn?)
to shovel the mud
claimed by the Occupier
so he can keep building
his house. He builds.
Builds with his hands.
A simple act.
A defiant act. An act
for his dignity, his well-being.
An act that bespeaks,
hour by hour,
his belief in a future.

Day 1,031

She writes a line. Deletes it.
Writes it again, exchanging
one word for another.
Adds punctuation. Deletes it.
Writes four lines. Five.
Feels she’s beginning to say
what she set out to say.
Meanwhile, close to where
her family is living, air strikes
are happening. Explosions.
Fires. She keeps writing.
Thinking. Deleting. Pondering
line breaks, whether to start
a line with a capital letter
or not. Posing meticulous
points of craft
against the rubble. The thunderous
noise. The ruin
around her. Meanwhile food
is still scarce. Internet connection
on and off. She writes
another line. Another.
Begins to feel the poem,
despite everything
that would impede it,
is taking shape.

Day 1,030

You number your friends,
the dead and the living.
The dead
outnumber the living.
You thought
this could be true,
but until this moment
you hadn’t counted.
You name them.
Write each of their names
on a blank sheet of paper.
You’re surprised
at how thick
the pile is, how high
it reaches into the equally
blank air in the tent
where you live now. What
remains to be written
under their names? Which
from now on
will only be spoken
in the past tense;
maybe, at times,
the present, as in
“she is buried” in
this place or that; or
“his face is probably
decomposing.” Present
or past. It’s the future
that’s been erased. That
will remain blank. So many
sheets with nothing
written. Blank. Their
futures. The future
you might have had together.

Day 1,029

He was eighteen months old.
Conceived, born,
during the genocide.
Four older brothers killed. He
the one surviving child.
Eighteen months. What
had he learned in this world?
He could walk. Run. Hug
his mother. Roll
a ball through the dust,
stand up, race
to catch it
before it stopped. Bring
it back. A few words,
every day more. Plane
was one of them. Drone
was one of them. Where
and No and Gone. There
would have been more.
So many more. Bury him
now with his green shorts,
his little blue jacket.
His shoes, that were
getting tight.
Bury him with his
memories of his brothers,
even the ones
who died before
he was born.
Their names. Their
photographs. Bury him
with all the thoughts
he never had
words for. With
his hands full of sand.
His scraped knees. Fragments
of a song he knew
how to sing. His
mother’s heart.

Day 1,028

for Dr. Feroze Sidhwa

A young woman
carried into the hospital
on a stretcher, several
months pregnant.
Her pelvis shattered.
Her fetus cut in half,
still in the womb.
What can you do for her?
How will you keep her alive?
No anesthetics. No
antibiotics. No
pain medication. Nothing
except your hand
holding hers
as you explain to her
what you’ll need
to cut, extract, remove
in order that she live.
If she does, it must be
at that price. Do you
understand that? you
ask her. Can you
accept it?

Day 1,027

with thanks to Dr Dorotea Gucciardo

No more than two years old.
Possibly — given
the levels of starvation —
two-and-a-half. She’s walking
alone on the ruined road, shoulders
hunched, back stooped, carrying
a heavy jug of water. Her
little arms bent backward
over her head
to secure it. We
don’t know who
may have sent her:
a mother who just
gave birth to her sibling?
A father whose legs
were blown off in a bombing?
We don’t know
how many times
she has walked this same road
to get water for her family;
she’s been fixed in the sniper’s
eye, the quadcopter’s
vicious aim. We don’t know
what the weight of the jug,
carried day after day,
will do to her spine, or
how many more times
she’ll survive this errand.

Day 1,026

Their bodies charred. Unable
to be identified, except
for the sizes of the children.
Length of a six-year-old.
Length of a nine-year-old,
an eleven-year-old.
Charred like trees,
like a grove of trees
that yesterday was
green and leafy. A family
asleep, now dead;
who, in the evening,
had been alive. Children
playing. Unrecognizable now
except for how long
the shrouds are, shrouds
wound around ash. Their
laughter: ash. Their
love for each other:
ash. Their studying:
ash. Their tenderness, their
fear, their singing, their arguments,
their desires, their
teasing, their dreaming: ash.

Day 1,025

Wait for me
were the last words
you heard your sister
speak. Wait for me
as she ran from the tent
down the sandy road
to where there was water.
She was going to fill
the buckets. You
and your brother
were going to walk
to the edge of the sea
with the younger ones.
She wanted to go.
Wait for me! she called
back to you, turning
her head. Her hair
windblown. Her feet
bare — her shoes
had too many holes
to be useful. She
was going to get water
so you’d have something
to cook with later.
Something to wash
the little ones’ feet with
after the beach. (The three
of you older ones —
your brother
only ten —
taking care of the littles
since your parents
were killed.) You waited.
Waited. The children
were crying. When?
Why can’t we go?
Your brother
began walking down
that same sandy road,
when suddenly
a neighbor from the tent camp
appeared. You called
to your brother,
who came running back.
It was good he was there
beside you when the neighbor
gave you the news.

Day 1,024

Their bodies were found together,
the two sisters whose laughter
the family in the next tent
had been hearing the night before.
Their bodies, stiff and cold
and covered with blood; when,
only the night before,
they’d been dancing
to music from their brother’s phone
and calling for others to join them.
How is it possible they’re dead?
Their voices, their wild joy
despite everything — they’d been
so alive! Now they are being wrapped
in white shrouds. Now the earth
is being prepared to receive them.
Now their mother will live
the rest of her life
hearing the shots that killed them.

Day 1,023

You stand, looking out
over the rubble
your city has been reduced to,
wondering how many
lie under that fallen world:
walls, ceilings, furniture,
rooftops, cars — all
indistinguishable
from where you stand.
How many bodies,
whole or in fragments?
How many severed limbs?
Charred faces? No way
to number them. No equipment
to clear what’s stacked
on top of them. Friends
you grew up with, still
unaccounted for. Your
grandmother, her cherished
blue shoes. Your mother,
her hair that could never
be tamed. What parts
of yourself as well
lie trapped there? you ask
the wind that seems
to carry their grieving
voices. The wind
that blows over everything.