Day 1,065

The boy, fourteen or fifteen, digs
through the rubble
of what may have been
his home. He has walked
all this way
from the tent camp he lives in.
Nothing looks the way it did;
but the angle of the hill
he can see from
where he’s standing
looks like the angle he saw
every day from his bedroom
window. He is digging
for his sister. His cousin.
His grandmother. He’s looking
for the smell of dinner
his mother cooked every night:
spices they’d planted
in the garden. Marjoram.
Peppers. He’s digging
for days spent with his two
best friends, digging
to pick up their long
conversation, unending
football games, secrets.
He is looking for morning light.
For the stripe of moonlight
across his bed. For his
grandfather’s voice.