Day 175

A boy lies in a makeshift hospital bed on the floor
of the corridor, next to his sister.  She is burned
so badly he doesn’t know her, keeps saying her name, 
asking whoever passes by where she is.  The doctors
and nurses don’t say that’s her, don’t tell him
everyone else in his family is gone.  He is wounded
but he may survive; it’s not, anyway, these wounds
he’ll die from.  When Ciel was seven I worked with a boy
the same age from Gaza who had come to be fitted
with a prosthetic leg.  Seventeen members of his family
killed in a single bombing: his mother, his grandmother,
his infant sister. He laid all the human figures from my shelves
on the floor, each by each, sat looking at them
a long time,  then covered them
with one of my shawls.  There were no words
between us; we needed no words.  Later I took Ciel
to Stoneface park, watched her climb the tall jagged rock:
her foothold sure, hands reaching level after level.
I thought of the boy stumbling on his metal leg.
I thought of his grandmother among the small covered dolls.
I drew the shawl around my shoulders, against the chill wind.