Day 468

The few things you still have, 
put them in this bag:  a notebook,
two pens, a needle you found
in a pile of rubble, catching the sun
one day.  Some thread unraveled
from a piece of someone’s shirt
you saw in another pile of lives
that had been destroyed.  A jacket
that belonged to a child:  how old
could she have been?  Three?
Four?  Little butterflies
on the front of it, a pink zipper.
A hood lined with nylon fleece.
How did it survive whole
when the child who wasn’t
wearing it exploded in fragments?
Too small for your child, but maybe
one day you’ll give birth
to another.  Take it
with you?  Take it
where?  Into some future
you can’t imagine but want
to believe in?