Day 423

A boy, fourteen, learns his father
has been killed on his way
to deliver food.  Who, now,
will bring flour and milk
to the hospital?  Stomachs
empty, eyes empty.  The boy
steps out into the place in the road
still stained with his father’s blood.
Looks around as though for the first time.
So little left standing of the neighborhood
where he played, learned
to ride a bike, walked
to school.  No one outside.
No one to dig those 
who may still be breathing
from under the rubble.  No
medicine to give them, no
surgeon left at the hospital,
to care for them,
no light, no fuel, no water. Where,
he wonders, will they take
his father’s body? No room in the graveyard
to bury the dead.