Day 227

How the streets are deserted that were full of people.
How the universities are destroyed, the hospitals gutted.
A solitary dog steps over slabs of concrete, looking
for something to eat, finding nothing.  All I want,
the young man is saying, is to return to studying.
His mother sits in the small room beside him.
She is rocking back and forth.  She does not know
how she will protect him, how
she will protect anything.  Day breaks
with its late spring promise of heat and sunlight.