Day 382

His grandmother was lively
and talkative, wore sparkly bracelets
on both wrists, kept her white hair
in braids, walked every day to the bakery,
grew herbs in pots on her windowsill.
Now she is bent, bedridden.  Her face
is shrunken, her lips gray.  Her grandson
knows it’s been months
since she’s worn her bracelets.
He is fifteen, but he looks like a ghost.
He sits at the edge of his grandmother’s 
bed, reading to her, while overhead
planes drop their deadly cargo.
A day and a night
of bombings that haven’t stopped.
Once the boy held his grandmother’s hand
as she walked him to school.  Once
she taught him to write his name.
Once they laughed, playing cards.
Now they are waiting, waiting
for the bomb that is meant for them.
If you put on your bracelets, the boy
tells his grandmother, someone 
who finds us will be able to know
this was you…