Day 1,004

The four year old child
was sitting in her tent
when the explosion came
that paralyzed her right side.
One moment she was sitting,
talking, eating. The next moment
only half her body could move.
She had just been learning
to zip a zipper, button a jacket, tie
a shoe. Hold her baby cousin,
rock him in her arms. What
will she do now, with only half
a body that moves? And the other half
silent, still, like a frame
stopped suddenly in a film: a witness
to genocide, a permanent reminder. Will the half
that is still
whisper its desires to the other half?
Will it wait, in darkness, for the touch of water?
Or soft grass? The warmth of sunlight?