Day 1,035

In the tent where they live,
her father has had another seizure.
No medicine for epilepsy
since longer than she can remember.
His eyes are closed now. The flailing
stopped. She puts the plastic knife
she uses to press down his tongue
to keep him from choking
in its place in a cardboard box
she keeps by the mattress
he sleeps on. Once he would
come home from his work,
pick her up in his arms,
swing her high over his head.
Now his brain is weakened,
his body weakened. Too
many seizures. Not
enough food. Not enough water.
Nothing to do but lie
on the mattress and watch
through the flap of the tent
as his younger kids play outside.
His wife murdered. This daughter,
his eldest, is wiping his forehead
now, where beads of sweat
have collected from the heat
of the electricity in his brain
that caused his whole body
to writhe and shake
and the heat outside
that beads moisture as well
on the tent panels.
Once she would have prayed
that he find work again,
that he lift up the younger ones again
as he’d lifted her. Now
her prayer is just that the seizures
come less often. That
the small plastic knife not go missing.