Day 1,116

Where are the children
who used to play together
on your street? All afternoon
once the school day was over,
they’d kick balls, chase each other,
sit on the steps of the houses
eating bread and fruit. Their voices
punctuated your hours. You listened
for them through the open
windows, waited for their shouts
and songs to keep you company
as you went about the tasks
of your day. Where
have they gone? How many
are still alive? How many in tents,
how many in hospitals, how many
buried under the earth, buried
under the rubble? How big
have they grown, those
who haven’t been slaughtered?
Far from the ruined street
you lived on, you try
to count them, try
to remember their names.