Day 251

Imagine a woman about to give birth.
Explosions — continuous — overhead.
Imagine she has wanted this child.
Imagine she has another child, a small daughter,
who presses her ear to her mother’s body
to hear the movements of her unborn brother.
Imagine they sing.  Imagine the sound
of their singing interrupts the sound
of the explosions.  The time nears, the woman
begins to wish the infant could stay in her womb
another week, another month.  Why help him
into this world, where the stench of rotting garbage
cannot overcome the stench of death?
Inside he is safe, his mother and sister
can sing him asleep, awake.   (Lucerito
de mi alma, I sang to Ciel
the day she was born — little light
of my soul, fierce glint
of solace — but what 
solace here?  What light?)