Day 270

How can we find the parents
of this child?  Alone, empty-eyed,
she sits on the ground.  She’s maybe
two and a half, maybe three.
Her t-shirt is stained with blood:
a sibling’s?  her mother’s? someone’s
she didn’t know?  She does not seem
wounded in her body, but
she doesn’t speak. There may be
no words, no words for what
she has seen. No one
has washed her.  No one
has cleaned her shirt, her feet.
Will she scream if anyone
tries to touch her?  She sits there
not moving, not crying, picking up
handfuls of dust, opening
her hands, letting the dust fall
back onto the ground.