Day 1,003

Dr. Abu Safiya
Pediatrician, Kamal Adwan Hospital

Now what is there
to be faced
except death? He
has been tortured, starved,
beaten. Denied medical care.
Denied medicine.
Denied visitors. Denied
the voices of his family.
His lawyer. The pediatrician
so devoted to his patients
that he buried his own
murdered son
wearing his scrubs, so he
could return immediately
to their bedsides — the doctor
who was arrested
after refusing to abandon
his patients — this doctor
could die soon,
in the underground dungeon
where they’ve thrown him.
In darkness. In solitude.
We must not abandon him now
to this hell. We must save
his memory if nothing else.
Somewhere in a past
that remains alive, a man
in green hospital scrubs
is walking through a broken
landscape — the remains
of the hospital that was
his life — toward a tank
where he knows
his oppressors will
shackle him. He walks
with his head high. His eyes
looking straight ahead. His stride
even. Unstopping.