Day 185

(Khan Yunis)

When they return to their home they cannot find it.
The same concrete slabs lie on the ground everywhere.
Here there’s a scrap of a colored curtain.  Here the handle of a blue teakettle.
Is this how we find our lives again? What lives?
It’s months since the children went to school.
Months since they played in the street.
They do not know if anyone is still alive.
One boy is trying to remember the name
of the friend he threw a ball to
on the last day before everything ended.