Day 361

All day this girl has been thinking
about her friend, the one
with green eyes, the one 
who played the flute and sang.
The one who sat up with her all night
after her grandmother died in her sleep,
the one who laughed when the pot of food
they were cooking spilled on the floor.
All day she has been thinking
about her friend, what they 
would be saying now to each other,
what songs they might be listening to.
She has been wondering what pain
her friend was in when she was killed,
or whether it happened so fast
she didn’t have time for pain.
Where are the fingers now
that worked so hard to learn the flute?
All day she has been trying to remember
a verse of one of the songs her friend
sang, and can’t.  It feels to her
like the only important thing
in the world right now
is to remember that verse.