Day 952

Later the girl told her father
she’d heard one soldier
ask the other, Who
shall I kill first: the boy
or the donkey?  She’d been walking
behind the cart the donkey
was pulling; her small brother,
exhausted from walking, was
sitting on the wooden plank
of the cart their older brothers
had built.  Who? the soldier
had repeated, lifting
his weapon:  a game,
a sport.  A slow
afternoon. The girl,
terrified, hadn’t been able
to find her voice, though
her father, when told
what had happened, assured her
that was probably why
she was the only one
of the three left
alive.  The other soldier
whispered something
to the one who, now,
was pointing his weapon.
It happened so fast,
the girl told her father.
In a moment the boy
and the donkey
lay on the ground,
their blood indistinguishable.