Day 460

The twelve year old boy 
goes to find water
to bring home to his family.
He is somehow still strong,
still able to walk on two legs.
Still able to carry water
with two hands.  He walks
past the rubble of his school,
past what were houses, a hospital.
The building where his best friend lived:
fallen, everyone who lived there
dead.  His friend, who,
on the last afternoon of his life,
challenged him to a race
and won.  Now I have to run
as fast as both of us combined,
run for both of us,
he thinks, and picks up
his pace, sprints
to where he’ll find water
to fill the jugs he’s holding,
carry them safely back, running
despite the water’s weight,
despite the road littered with ruins,
the drones overhead,
the snipers’ bullets.