Day 568

You wake because you have to.
You had a home, a husband, 
parents, four children.
Now your husband has been killed,
your parents are dead of illness
and starvation, and two
of your children lie
in their graves, their bodies
shattered.  Maybe they’re whole
again, you think.  Maybe the bomb
that took them should have taken
the rest of us.  Then we wouldn’t
be hungry, sick, frightened.
You allow yourself
to think that for a moment,
the first moment you lie 
looking up at the still-dark sky
through places where the tent
is ripped. But then
you stir, slowly, out
from under your blanket.  You
sit up, look at your two
living children, still
asleep. Still breathing
almost peacefully.  You know
the wearying tasks of day
will begin again, and you
will do them again because
you have to, because
you are their mother, because
they need you to feed them.
To pretend one more day
you can keep them safe
despite the destruction you know
is lurking around you, is lying
in wait for you.  Which may
or may not come for you.