Day 933

He was born
the night
the apartment tower
his parents lived in
was bombed. His mother
and father took refuge
on the campus
of the university (reduced
not long afterward
to rubble as well).
After some hours,
his mother began screaming
with pain: she was in labor.
In labor amid the rubble.
In labor accompanied by
flames, explosions.
Without blankets, water, monitors.
Other women assisting.
Her child born on a bed of ash,
to the wail
of airstrikes. His mother’s
pain. The child
now two and a half!
Surviving! Walking. Talking.
Knowing no world
besides bombs.
Hunger. Dust.
Yet laughing, singing,
playing with rocks,
sticks, dirt. Child
of the genocide. Child
of his parents’ fear, their
desperation. Their urgent love.

Day 932

A body
by the side of the road,
body of a young man.
Somebody’s son. Probably
somebody’s brother. Will he
be brought to some
barely functioning hospital
without a name, an address?
With no one to claim him,
no one alive to whom
he belonged? Say
what we can about him:
a young man, maybe
nineteen, twenty. Thin:
possibly hadn’t eaten
in days. Time of death:
earlier today. Body
not completely cold.
Death by what was fired
from a drone. Yesterday
he was alive: we can guess
that he spoke, walked,
maybe slept. Was surrounded
by others he might
have lived with.

Day 931

The artifacts of loss
are stacked around you —
haphazardly, among the rubble.
A single shoe, no laces. Handle
of a pot. Handle of a tricycle.
A ragged sweater, cover
of a laptop, a phone
with a cracked screen, bits
of linoleum tile that must have lined
some light-filled kitchen,
to judge from the fading. Pieces
of lives, each resonant
with memories, each steeped
in something unspeakable.
What will you throw
into that mound? Your precious
books? Your grandmother’s
chair? The fragrances
of her cooking? Your child’s voice?

Day 930

There are days
when what she wishes for
is her doll. The doll
she slept with, the doll
she carried everywhere with her
when she was small, the doll
whose cloth body was mended
and mended again
by her grandmother, the doll
who stayed on a chair
in the corner of her room
while she went to second grade,
third. The doll
she almost forgot about
as soon as she made friends.
As soon as she could read.
As soon as she learned to draw.
The doll who was blown to pieces
when the house was blown to pieces.
When her grandmother
was blown to pieces
and her mother, her father.
Random luck of her being
sent to her aunt’s house
on the day of the bombing
to play with her cousins;
playing all day, then
getting the news
just as her uncle
was going to walk her home.
She thinks of her doll:
stained dress, yarn eyes,
stringy red hair.
Did the doll’s cloth body
scatter in fragments
like her mother’s? Her father’s?

Day 929

Tell me what it was like,
she asks her sister,
lying together in their tent,
wind blowing fiercely
outside, drones
buzzing — tell me
what it was like
in our neighborhood.
Tell me the things
I can’t remember,
things I was too young
to take in: the park
you were allowed
to go to, the store
where you bought
the pastries you’d
bring home — Tell me.
Her sister closes her eyes
so she can remember,
so she has one true thing
to tell her;
but all she can think of
are buildings gutted
and collapsed, trees
stripped of their leaves,
glass windows of shops
shattered, shards glistening
in the rubble. One dog
standing alone on top
of a pile of blasted concrete,
his eyes empty, his fur singed.

Day 928

What she found were bones.
Bones with torn flesh
clinging to them. Grasping. Bones
that were whole and as long
as a child’s thigh. Any child’s,
maybe hers. Bones
that were split, that —
had they remained
in their envelope of flesh —
would have been agonizingly
painful, would possibly
not have been able
to be mended. For that
she felt grateful. Grateful?
Her child was shattered,
could not be reassembled.
Like a smashed toy. Like
a puzzle thrown on the ground.
Shards of glass from a broken mirror.
Her own body, too — though
she was not caught
in the bombing — broken
in chaotic grief, her spirit
dispersed on charred ground
among pieces of her child.

Day 927

She asked her mother to braid her hair
and tie the braid with a ribbon.
A ribbon was hard to find,
but it was her birthday. Her mother
walked through the tent encampment,
asking everyone for a ribbon; and
at last a woman took a ribbon
from some books she’d tied
with it – an old green ribbon. Worn thin.
But a ribbon! and gave it
to the girl’s mother. The girl,
who was five that day, stood
quietly while her mother
brushed, parted, braided
her hair. A long braid,
halfway down her back.
Dark, shiny hair. Just washed.
The mother took the ribbon
from her pocket, showed
it, for the first time,
to the girl. The girl
gasped with surprise and happiness,
held the ribbon, stroked it
as though it were something alive.
Hours later, when the girl
lay dead on the ground
of the tent encampment
after the airstrike, her mother
bent over her body, kissed
her small face, untied
the ribbon from her child’s
long braid. Put it back
in her pocket forever.

Day 926

The street you lived on
was lined with trees,
tall trees whose shade
you were grateful for
in summer.  Trees
you could climb, trees
whose young leaves
unfolded, light green,
then darkened.  The street
you lived on was filled
with people, voices
you heard as you fell asleep,
comforting.  Familiar.
Sounds of cooking, lids
being put on pots, plates
being laid on tables.
Music.  Cats
who would greet you
when you passed
on the way to school.
An old man who walked
with his dog every morning
and afternoon. The street
you lived on had a
particular curve,
a way the pavement
rose and then fell,
a smell, a name
you could find it by.
How will you find it now?

Day 925

The father’s body
is wrapped around the body
of his small son.
Blood stains both
of their clothing.  The child,
three, has been killed
in the street, standing
quietly with his father
when a vehicle near them
was bombed.  Now
the child is dead
and the father, alive.
Alive and wailing,
alive and sobbing.
They had been going
to a wedding.  The child
would have been dressed
by his father in clothes
for the wedding, but now
he’ll be dressed in a shroud.
He’ll join the thousands
of children dressed now
in shrouds.  Under
the earth, a whole
country of children.
Why why screams the father,
but there is no why.  The moment
he lets go of his son
and forever after, his arms
will be empty.

Day 924

Two brothers dead
in the same moment,
the same bombing.
Two brothers who played
together, studied together,
ate together, took care
of their younger siblings together,
now lie together in separate graves.
Two brothers who loved and fought,
two brothers who consoled
each other, argued for each other.
Are their parents, their sisters,
alive to grieve them?  To
speak about how
they could not save each other?
How funny they were, how full
of mischief?  How neither of them
would have wished
for the other to join him
here, in the sightless company
of moles and worms.
Here, in darkness below darkness.
Here, in silence surrounding silence.