Day 983

All of them grieving this infant.
He was just months old. He was trying
with all his might to live.
His mother had little milk,
his father had little money
to buy food for her so her body
could nourish her son’s. The Occupier
banned formula. Water was scarce.
But he was alive! He was smiling
and making sounds and watching
the movements of his hands.
He was the center of their happiness.
Now their life has no center. Now
his mother is folding his little shirts,
putting them in a small, clean pile.
Now his grandmother, his grandfather
are weeping over his small chest
that does not rise and fall, his eyes
that look, now, at nothing. The strike
that killed him instantly
killed no one else in the tent, though
the tent is useless, destroyed.
The tent wraps itself around his
stillness like a torn shroud,
hovers, fallen, over him like a bird
with broad wings, who always
intended to keep him safe.