Day 329

The feel of skin, soft skin, your infant sister’s skin.
The smoothness of petals.  The roughness
of sand.  The cold shock of the sea
after months of winter.  Do you fall asleep
counting these things?  Do you dream,
sometimes, that this horror has ended,
that you are walking on a street
with houses, gardens, red and yellow roses
making the air fragrant (the air no longer filled
with the stench of everything rotting)?  Do you reach
for those you loved who are no longer there
and feel, sometimes, that you touch them?
Can you tell yourself that you breathe 
for them, you sing for them, you walk
for them?  Oh child: we are made
of stars and sea and sand, forest and desert.
We are made of one another, our cells
interwoven, our blood intermixed. Can you
take solace in this, does it ring
anything but hollow for you?