Day 414

Every day the boy watches the other children
kicking a ball through the dusty corridors
among tents.  Every day he remembers
what it felt like to run, to kick, the moment
of contact with the ball.  Every day his father
tells him it’s okay, he’s lucky to still
be alive — not like your cousins, not
like that boy from school who was good
at math…Every day he looks
in his father’s eyes, sees the sadness
his father’s scolding, his bravado,
is trying to shield.  At night,
in the tent, he feels his father’s body
shaking with sobs he suppresses.  Once,
waking, he saw his father reach
over to him, to where his leg
would have been, and tenderly stroke the cloth,
the cold canvas floor that separates them
from the ground.