Day 241

The girl says she will study medicine
when the war is over, when she is older,
to honor her brother, who died
of a disease that could have been prevented.
The boy died of imperialism.  He died
of occupation, oppression.
The virus that colonized his body
settled first in his soft organs.
Soon he could not eat, but there was no
food anyway.  Nor drink the water
that wasn’t there.  Nor take the medicines
that weren’t allowed into the hospitals
that had been destroyed.  Nor be cared for
by the doctors who had been killed. 
His sister makes her way through fallen houses.
Bodies of their friends line what used to be
their street. Among the collapsed walls
she finds the handlebar of his bicycle,
imagines it whole, like her brother, 
in the other world.