Day 591

They say they’ll let food in
but no food is coming.  They say
they’ll begin to let medicines in,
but your father has seizures
and needs medicine every day.
You sit on the sand, trying to read
a book you’ve already read, the one book
you’ve been able to take with you
through all the displacements.
You’re ten.  Before this genocide began,
you were a little girl.  Now 
you need to take care
of everyone in your family:
Younger brothers, younger sister.
Your mother is dead. You’re
left to find whatever there is
to eat, which, for days, has been 
grasses, some berries
that still grow wild
near the beach where you’ve pitched
your tent.  From where you’re sitting
you hear your father’s choked scream:
another seizure.  You will go to him
one more time, hold his head, keep him
from swallowing his tongue. 
How many more days
can you do this?  You: hungry,
exhausted.  Your legs
too weak now to run.
How many more days
til your childhood dissolves altogether
into the noise of drones, the fetid air?