Day 1,008

from a photograph

A girl, maybe twelve,
in a gauzy pink dress
with a floral pink shawl
at her shoulders,
a pink flowered barrette
in her long dark hair,
stands between two
seated woman – her
mother and grandmother? –
on what may have been the terrace
of the house they’d lived in.
All we see is their backs,
the black chairs each of the women
sits in. The ruined city
before them: rubble,
cement blocks, piles
of wreckage stretching
west to the sea. How many
lie buried under that wreckage? How
many children? How many
still not counted, still
not found, still not
uncovered? They’re looking out
toward the sea, the ruins
close to the sea
pinkish now from the setting sun.
What fraught celebration
have they come from
or are about to go to?
A wedding? A birthday?
The women, too, are dressed up:
pearled embroidery on the shoulders
of the one whose left arm
is around the girl. Who, what
are they missing now,
as they look out
on what has become
of the city they lived in?