Day 463

from a photograph that could be the Pietà

A mother sits, holding her child.
The child is maybe ten, eleven.
She’s wearing a white t-shirt, long
sleeves, pajama pants
with little hearts on them.  Some
of the hearts are drawn as though
they’re bordered by lace, some
not.  You can see that the child’s
right foot, as it protrudes
from her pajamas, is swollen
beyond recognition.  The mother,
who appears uninjured, looks down tenderly
at her daughter’s face, but the daughter
stares only straight ahead,
as though she sees nothing
at all, as though
what she sees is death. As though her eyes
have been blinded by fear or shrapnel.
She grasps her mother’s headscarf
with one hand, the hand
that may be holding on 
to the last shards of her life. 
There was a girl
who told silly stories to her mother
about her friends, her teachers.
There was a girl who asked
for heart pajamas, and her mother
found them, gave them to her
wrapped in colored paper.
How long ago was that?
How have they arrived here
on the bloodstained floor
of this hospital, how
can there be nothing but blankness
where this child is looking?