Day 288

The woman about to give birth
lies on the floor of her tent.
Her sister is with her, and another woman
who knows about birth. The baby’s father
has been killed, the baby’s grandparents.
Her sister takes her hand when the contractions
are strongest.  None of them makes a sound.
There is only the sound of the third woman
dipping a sponge in a bucket of water,
squeezing it out, bringing it to the dry lips
of the woman about to become a mother.
Dread and happiness, terror and anticipation.
For weeks she has been praying for the baby
not to come — not here, not now —
but the process goes on, inexorable.
Like the bombs that fall
even as she breathes
through her pain, inexorable.