Day 1,026

Their bodies charred. Unable
to be identified, except
for the sizes of the children.
Length of a six-year-old.
Length of a nine-year-old,
an eleven-year-old.
Charred like trees,
like a grove of trees
that yesterday was
green and leafy. A family
asleep, now dead;
who, in the evening,
had been alive. Children
playing. Unrecognizable now
except for how long
the shrouds are, shrouds
wound around ash. Their
laughter: ash. Their
love for each other:
ash. Their studying:
ash. Their tenderness, their
fear, their singing, their arguments,
their desires, their
teasing, their dreaming: ash.