Day 307

(Hind, once again)

In the photograph
she is wearing a black graduation cap
outlined in gold.  It sits
at a little angle, as though
she had been running
just before someone took
the picture, the hat not made
to fit squarely on her small head,
her dark curls.  Her eyes shine,
she is proud (you can tell) 
to have finished kindergarten!
So proud to have learned
to read, to write her name,
other words.  When
was this taken?  In June?
Seven months before her death
by bombing in a car on a road
the ambulance couldn’t get to,
since it, too, had been bombed?
You can tell from the photograph
how bright she was.  How vibrant,
how full of mischief.  How she would use
everything she had learned, those last
hours, to try to keep herself alive.