Day 598

Your one remaining child
lies in a hospital bed.  His body
is a charred log. You pray
every minute that he stay alive
and part of you prays
that he find a way
out of hunger, thirst, grieving.
Part of you wants to lie down
beside him, pass the strength
of your body to his,
like trees that seem to grow
from the same root.  Another 
part of you wonders
whether the death
that might soon come for him 
could take you instead, mistake
you for the one it’s
been sent to claim.