Day 413

You come back empty handed one more time,
having gone to find food for the children.
Your breasts too are empty:  the baby
doesn’t cry anymore for milk, and that,
you know, is not a good thing.  Infant
born under bombings, infant swaddled in
fear, displacement, loss. His sisters
hold him, comfort him, while you go out
looking for something to keep you all alive
one more day.  He has been so briefly
in this world, will he be taken back
before he can walk? Sit? Grasp
one tiny hand with the other?  When he turns
his head away, is he looking
toward the mysterious place he came from, 
asking if it will receive him again,
staunch the pain of his hunger?