Day 957

A child — you can tell
from the handwriting — has written
a name on a slab of concrete
propped up against other slabs
near the remains of a building
that was once filled
with apartments, filled
with families.  A child
has written the name
of another child.  Beneath it,
dates:  birth date
and death date.  You read the dates,
calculate.  The dead child
was seven.  Seven.  Did he die
in a bombing? Did the place
he’d lived in collapse
around him?  Did his whole
family die with him?  Or
were they saved?  Oh,
he might have died
from starvation.  From
some illness that might
have been cured if there
had been medicine.  From
a sniper’s gunshot
when he was out
in the street.  And the child
who wrote his name —
was that child a cousin?
a sister or brother? a friend?
a neighbor? a beloved classmate
from a school
that is also gone?
And is that child,
the one who wrote
name and dates
to preserve the memory,
so the child who lived
seven years would not
be wholly erased
from this world — is
that child,
about whom we
know nothing, still living?