Day 998

Khan Younis

A young woman in a tent —
23 — and her year-old daughter
are killed in an airstrike. They
go down into the rows
of statistics of all
who have by now
been martyred. The mother’s
love, her fear for her child,
her longing for quiet, for sweetness —
gone. The child’s hunger.
Her efforts to stand. To walk.
Her words, or what
sounded like words. Also
gone. Her giggling
at her father, her uncles, the wind
moving through leaves. The horror
of those last moments:
gone. The flames, the explosion.
The awe of their first moments
together in this world:
that too is gone. What they lived
and what they might have lived.
The fragrant breeze
that touches their bodies now,
mothering each of them.