Day 1,100

Mohammed Tamous

How many did he pull
with his own hands
out of the rubble? How many
did he talk to for hours, sitting
beside collapsed buildings
where they were buried, through
rainy nights, freezing nights,
reassuring them that their legs
were numb only because
they were trapped;
that their blindness
might be temporary; that others
were sitting beside their children,
their parents, their neighbors.
How many children
without mothers or fathers
did he hold, comfort, carry
to some kind of safety?
How many mothers
whose children no one
could dig up? How many bags
of body parts did he deliver
to waiting families, bowing
his head, apologizing
that that — a bag
filled with flesh, hair, a few fingers —
was all they could gather?
And now he himself
has been killed. Killed
like so many he tried
to save. Killed
when there were others —
so many others! —
he would have gone on saving.