Day 1,024

Their bodies were found together,
the two sisters whose laughter
the family in the next tent
had been hearing the night before.
Their bodies, stiff and cold
and covered with blood; when,
only the night before,
they’d been dancing
to music from their brother’s phone
and calling for others to join them.
How is it possible they’re dead?
Their voices, their wild joy
despite everything — they’d been
so alive! Now they are being wrapped
in white shrouds. Now the earth
is being prepared to receive them.
Now their mother will live
the rest of her life
hearing the shots that killed them.