Day 1,045

She’s eight months old now,
the child born over a year
after your first child died,
eight months carried
in your womb. Three days:
all of you crushed airless
under the rubble. His father and you
survived by some miracle,
pulled out weak and bleeding,
bones shattered. The baby
nearly ready to be born,
cut without heartbeat
from your body. Sometimes,
lying awake at night,
you talk to him. Speak
the name you’d have
given him, tell him
about his sister. Sometimes
you tell her about the brother
she would have played with,
laughed with, learned from.
This morning a woman asked you
how many children you have.
Two, you told her.
But the genocide
deprived them
of each other. One
here. The other
never arrived.