Day 574

You have no wood, so you gather
your own old shoes
to burn for cooking.  Shoes
that carried you to the university,
Shoes that walked to your uncle’s
house, your grandfather’s.  Shoes
you were wearing when you first
fell in love, when you wrote
your first poem, when you took
your first child outside
for the first time.  The canvas
tops, the rubber soles
burn slowly. They give off
a foul smell.  You have time
to remember:  these
were the shoes you wore
to see a movie you loved.  These
were the shoes you wore
to hear a lecture
by the professor you admired,
murdered shortly into the genocide.
These were the shoes
you wore to search 
for your mother’s body,
your sister’s, your two
younger brothers’, the day
your house was bombed.
Now they are burning
so you can cook rice
for your children, warm the beans
that are almost gone, even warm
your own hands a little
as you stand outside your tent,
smoke from the shoes
rising into the troubled sky.