Day 616

for Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar
and her son, Adam Al-Najjar

 
In a beautiful place
the boy says
there are no bombs
and I go to school.
There are desks at school.
Kids do their lessons
and then they go to play
in the courtyard
and nobody dies.
The boy is eleven.
He has lost all nine
of his siblings.
He has lost his father.
He has lost his house.
He is on a plane now
with his mother.
They are going to Milan,
where doctors
will treat his injuries.
Where he and his mother
(and his aunt and his cousins)
will begin a new life.
Will live in a beautiful place.
A place with food.  With
hospitals.  With schools.
He will heal over the summer.
He will learn Italian.
He will go to school.
His mother — a beautiful
place is a place
where my mother
is not always
sad — will work
again as a pediatrician.
Where she will tell
her story.  Where
she will care
for this one
remaining son.  Where
they will remember
the place they
lived in, which,
before the genocide,
was a beautiful place.