Day 1,071

Her name was Wafa.
She was eight years old.
She’d just completed
her first day of school.
You can imagine
how excited she was!
School! School
that had not been happening
for three whole years! She’d awakened,
put on her best clothes,
eaten her breakfast. Sat
next to her friends.
Recited, sung, learned
a new way of multiplication.
Now all that remains of her
is a tuft of her hair. Brown,
curly. Hair she’d carefully
brushed in the morning.
A tuft of her hair, in the hand
of a neighbor. Wafa.
Eight years old.
Killed as her father
walked her home
from her school. Killed
before she got to practice
the new multiplication.
Killed before she got to play
with the new friend she’d made.
Her small body in fragments.
No way to find all of them.
No way to piece them together.
Her clean, brushed hair
held out by a neighbor
to the reporter’s camera.
The neighbor asking
the viewers Why?
Why? Why?