Day 950

A small child
found lying in the rubble,
bleeding, but alive.  A woman
picks him up, holds him,
carries him to a hospital.
She runs, heart pounding, face red
but warmed by his still warm breath.
The child is too young to speak.
No way she can learn his name.
No one around him when
she found him.  He’s examined,
treated, bandaged.  The doctors
give what medicine is there
to the woman, who already
has three children.  She
will carry him home. She
will give him the medicine.  She
will ask and ask and ask
to find his parents, grandparents,
anyone at all he might
have belonged to.  For now
he is hers. She will
give him a name.  She
will give him clean clothes.
She will wash the clothes
he’d been wearing
and wash her own clothes,
soaked in his blood.  It will be
a kind of ritual.