Day 1,009

from a photograph

It looks like a quiet stream
flowing between banks of sand
on a beach, behind which
you can see
bombed buildings where once
people lived their lives.
It looks like a stream
where a boy sits, dressed
for summer. You might think
his next act will be
to wade in the stream,
dip his feet in cool water,
maybe to walk, parting
the water, downstream
for a while. Meet others
doing the same. But
it isn’t a stream: it’s
a pool of sewage
draining down
from the tent camp he lives in.
Its stench not knowable
from the photograph, somehow
tolerated by the boy,
who is glad, for just
now, to be
sitting alone, to feel even
the least breeze
blowing in from the sea,
this momentary respite
from crowding and fear
and the buzz of drones …