Day 228

I have nothing to lay on this grave
that is not a grave, but a photograph
of a pile of concrete.  I have
no flowers, no words of comfort.
I don’t know how you died, nor where, nor
in what places you were before this happened.
I cannot pray for you; I don’t know what
you might have wanted me to ask for, to praise
or thank or lament.  I don’t know
if you were old or young, infant or child.
Did you love?  Did you trade your life
for a bag of flour, a bucket of saline water?
Was there a bird, an insect on a stem of grass you saw
before the bomb or bullet blackened your sight?
Whoever you are, I mourn you.  I bring you
these words from my helplessness, my anguish.
When I walk down my street I will 
remember you of whom I know
nothing except you lived. I will carry you
with me, I who have nothing else to offer.