Day 604

A mother searches through the rubble
for her child.  What she finds
is a shoe, a red shoe
she had helped her child
slip on her foot
in the morning.  How could this shoe
be so intact, and her daughter’s body
scattered in pieces?  Little shoe
her daughter loved, little red shoe
passed down from a cousin.
Little shoe the child learned
to run in. Little shoe
that had just gotten
to the right size, the child
so proud that her feet had grown … The mother holds
the shoe, wipes it clean
with her hand, presses it
tenderly to her cheek.  Will she
keep it? Bury it?