Day 674

for Anas Al-Sharif


Nonstop bombing: the last
truth you published. City
circled by fire. How many
dead? How many wounded?
Your days spent behind a camera.
Your crime, for which
they targeted you: documenting
what happened. Filming it, recording it.
Not only your words but the sounds
everyone in the city heard, the flames they saw
consuming tents, the wordless merciless
evidence. Evidence. Beyond
challenge, beyond denial. You witnessed that,
let others, in far places, witness. For that
they murdered you: shut down
eyes, ears, mouth. Your hands that wrote.