Day 394

Believe me when I say these children
walked two miles to get clean water
for their family and two miles
to bring it back.  They did this
every morning, whatever
the weather.  They carried jugs,
pots, any container they could find.
Their mother waited in their tent
with the two littlest ones.  Their father
already had been killed.  The children —
six and seven — would otherwise
have been walking to school, and this
is what sometimes they pretended
to do.  There was not
a genocide, there were not drones
constantly overhead, their father
and older brothers were still
alive, there was no
chance the water would be
contaminated and if they didn’t
hurry they’d be late
for class…Believe me
when I say this is what
they pretended on their way
to get water, what
they were pretending
the moment everything
went dark, their jug
in pieces on the ground, the pots
they’d been carrying
rolling away from their bodies.