Day 1,076

for Bairbre

When you first look at him
dancing in the street
with a group of other boys,
he looks like an ordinary kid —
seven or eight, more
graceful than most, moving
with skill and utter delight.
Then you look more closely:
the boy has no hands, no wrists,
no foot on his left leg. He’s using
his stump of a leg so deftly
you don’t think of the gone foot.
His movements are rhythmic. Seamless.
The boy is a dancer, choreographing
his every move. The gestures he makes
with his arm-stumps
let you see his invisible hands.
His hands that are somewhere
under the rubble. His foot
that exploded into the air,
burst into fragments,
flashing shards of fire,
as it perished. Perished.