Day 986

for Bairbre

A man sees the body of a child
trapped under the rubble.
A whole body, a girl’s body,
clothes soaked in blood.
He checks to see
if she’s breathing. She’s not.
He holds her lifeless body
by the shoulders, tries
to pull her out. He can’t.
One of her legs is crushed
under heavy concrete.
It’s keeping her trapped.
In the distance, the man
sees starving dogs, dogs
who once belonged
to families, several
of them, devouring a corpse.
He takes a pocket knife, begins
to cut into the place
on the child’s leg
where it’s trapped,
so he can begin to free
her body. So it won’t
be the next to be eaten.
So he can bury it
in a quiet place,
under trees, where
it can rest. He works
and works. Skin, muscle.
ligaments, bone. Uses
whatever instruments
he can find. It takes
a long time. At last
he lifts the girl, without
her trapped leg,
out of the broken slabs of concrete
that had been her home.
Picks her up tenderly,
his jacket stained
with her blood. Carries her
as though she had been
his own daughter,
to a place near
what had been a meadow
where he can begin
to dig her grave.