Day 229

I am thinking about the man whose legs 
were burned, so burned he barely had skin.
He was made to kneel on the floor for fifty days,
hands behind his back, no pain relief, no medical care.
How could it be possible? I am thinking
of what it might have been
that sustained him, kept him alive, 
that staved off infection, sepsis, gangrene.
Fifty days he knelt, stared straight ahead,
listened to sounds outside.  Did he have children?
Was he thinking of them?  Was he thinking
of friends he loved, music, a street he knew?
Did he count each daybreak, tell himself
survival itself is a form of resistance?