Day 411

On the road that is not a road anymore
past the city of broken concrete
a small procession of people
carry empty pots back to where
they are staying, pots they had hoped
to fill with flour, vegetables, cheese.
A woman stops, breaks off
from the others, sits by the side
of the road, wraps her shawl
more tightly around her.  She’s tired,
cold.  She has been walking
a long time. She thinks of her child,
crying from hunger all night:  how
she promised him she’d find food
for him in the morning, how hard
it will be to show him
the empty pot.  She thinks of his small
voice, growing weaker each day.  She thinks
of his arms, how thin they are.  How
when he puts them around her waist
she can barely feel them.  How she is learning
all the ways death can take a child:
quickly — a bomb; a shot to the head —
or slowly, like this, a little at a time.
Chill air.  A metal pot
that couldn’t be filled. A slow procession
past ghosts, past the ghosts of ghosts.