Day 967

You send her to collect wood
for a fire, so
you can warm some thin cereal
for the baby to eat.
She never comes back. Instead,
a neighbor comes
to your tent
carrying all the wood
she’d gathered, telling you
where he’d found her body.
Her strong legs that ran
out of the tent. Her strong arms
that would have brought the wood back
had it not been
for the sniper’s bullet. You send
your older son
with the neighbor
to bring back her body. For now,
the baby is crying
from hunger, more
and more intensely.
You build a fire
to warm his breakfast
with the wood that’s stained
with his sister’s blood.