Day 202

In my dream I am standing on slabs of concrete.
There are strips of curtains, 
ashes of what might have been books.
A man comes up alongside me, a young man.
He is carrying something that first
I think is simply a shroud or a blanket,
but he cradles it tenderly.  Without words
he hands it to me.  In the distance I hear
drones, warplanes.  I can hear someone crying.
Voices of children.  He hands me what he is carrying
and I am surprised at its weight.  I fold back
what covers it, see that it’s an infant.
The man now — father? uncle? — has
disappeared.  There is no one standing anywhere
near me.  Slabs of concrete.  I try to see
if the infant is dead or alive, and I 
cannot tell.  It may be breathing a little.
Its face, grayish.  Its hands, cold.  But its tiny chest
is moving, now, up and down.  What
am I going to do with it?  How can I stop its death
from taking it all the way?