Day 628

The boy said he’d go
to where the boxes of food
were being distributed.  He
was twelve:  tall, thin from months
of starvation, yet still
strong enough to walk
for a couple of hours before dawn
to reach the site;  to wait
in the heat of the summer day
until they gave him a box
for his family.  Of all
the siblings, older 
or younger, he
was the strongest.  That’s
what they’re saying
about him now, his sisters
and brothers:  that he
was the fastest, the brightest,
the one who never got sick
when the others did.  The one
who always volunteered
to lift this, carry that…The one
who would never refuse a task,
the one whose body seemed able
to withstand whatever came.  What
it couldn’t withstand
was the bullet.  His flesh,
like anyone’s, penetrable.
His brain penetrable.  What
it couldn’t withstand
was the blood
hemorrhaging inside him,
a cascading river; or the sudden
blackness, a curtain falling
once and for all
on sight, breath, everything.