Day 558

Everyone around her is bringing her food
so she can make milk for her baby.  They
are not family, not even old friends — all
of them have just planted their tents
in that dusty field,  everyone displaced
from somewhere else — but she
has no family except her three
older children, and her husband — 
their father — was killed when the baby
was four months in the womb. Now
they are helping her try to keep this one alive.
It’s chilly, windy.  Two of the older children
lie on either side of the baby, blankets
under and over them, to keep her warm.
The mother is holding the two year old,
who’s crying now because he’s hungry,
That’s when the women come in 
from the neighboring tents
with rice, cooked lentils, freshly baked bread,
even an orange!  She feeds her two year old
first, then — because the women insist
they’ll bring more — takes a large portion
of lentils and rice for herself.  Where
did they get this?  She wonders.
Are they depriving themselves? She looks
at her baby, who has opened her eyes
now, stares up at her sisters.
There will be milk enough
for you today, her mother tells her,
warming the cold tiny hands 
between her own.