Day 583

She’s no more than a stick.
A child put together by sticks.
How is her skin
stretched so taut against
those bones?  What
have her muscles, her ligaments,
gone to feed?  How is her heart
still beating?  What
do her kidneys, her liver,
have to do?  Nothing
has passed from her mouth
to her body in months
but dry grasses
and poisoned water.  
Even her voice
has starved:  the crying
you hear is her mother’s.
Death is claiming this child
not all at once, but
ounce by ounce.  Cell by cell.