Day 236

One airstrike followed closely
by another  And then it was clear
that what they smelled, maybe
thirty minutes later, were bodies
burning.  Bodies that just before
had been sleeping, sitting, talking.
Bodies that ached.  Bodies
that hungered.  The envelope of flesh
torn, charred, sizzling.  Nothing to hold
the tender organs, nothing
to shield, to enclose.
How without skin will they look
for surcease of pain?  How
without skin will those
who are standing dig
(with what fingers?) to find
the buried ones, whose cries
are silenced now by the sound
of everything burning?