Day 933

He was born
the night
the apartment tower
his parents lived in
was bombed. His mother
and father took refuge
on the campus
of the university (reduced
not long afterward
to rubble as well).
After some hours,
his mother began screaming
with pain: she was in labor.
In labor amid the rubble.
In labor accompanied by
flames, explosions.
Without blankets, water, monitors.
Other women assisting.
Her child born on a bed of ash,
to the wail
of airstrikes. His mother’s
pain. The child
now two and a half!
Surviving! Walking. Talking.
Knowing no world
besides bombs.
Hunger. Dust.
Yet laughing, singing,
playing with rocks,
sticks, dirt. Child
of the genocide. Child
of his parents’ fear, their
desperation. Their urgent love.