Day 230

I want to tell you about the girl, maybe three years old,
running from the hospital with her mother.
Her mother running more slowly because
she is carrying a baby with a bandage around its head.
The girl is holding a large jar of baby formula
though there is no water to mix it with.  And someone
is asking her where they are running, and she answers,
tears in her voice, I don’t know.  And someone
is asking what will you do now and she answers
I don’t know.  And where her father is she doesn’t
know, and whether her house will be rebuilt,
whether her grandmother is alive, whether
the bombing will stop for more than this hour
when others, as well, are fleeing the hospital.