Day 1,091

Your hair was long, flowed
in waves down your back.
Your hands were graceful; they
danced when you spoke.
Often they were white with flour.
Often they held one of your children.
You moved among us
like a wind, a song: your feet
barely touching the ground.
You were that swift, that delicate.
When the airstrike came
you were walking from the place
where you went to get water.
Buckets swaying rhythmically
as you walked. A clear day. Your children
in the tent, waiting for you
to come home. To quench their thirst.
You were shattered in pieces. Ground
to nothing. Blood and fingers
in the dust. Clothes flung everywhere.
Water cutting rivulets into the earth.
How is it possible you’re no longer
alive? How could they massacre
a wind? Entomb in the dirt a song?