Day 970

The girls, eight or nine,
are sitting on rocks
outside one of their tents.
If they were at school,
they’d be having this conversation
on benches, interrupted
by shouts of other kids
racing across the yard.
They’re numbering their losses:
an aunt, two uncles, seven cousins.
This one by fire, this one
by drone, these from starvation.
They’re asking each other,
Which would you rather
have amputated? An arm or a leg?
Go deaf or go blind? Never see
your father again or your brother?
They’re practicing tragedy
by naming it, bastioning themselves
against what they know
could happen. They sit talking
calmly, as though imagining
what it would be like to misplace
books or old toys or dresses
they like, things already gone.
Things, in another time,
they would have shed tears about.