Day 505/Ceasefire Day 35

What do you tell the children
now that you’ve walked all the way back
to where you were when everything began
and there’s no home waiting for you,
not even the promised trailer, not even the tent
you left behind in the south?  Broken anyway,
you told them; for weeks, it let in the cold, the rain.
What do you tell them when they ask
for friends who played with them in the street
only a day before the bombing?  What do you say
when they ask for their school, their teachers?
Their questions are the edge of an abyss
you don’t want to look down at. They echo
for you through the night, stand waiting for you
when you open your eyes in the morning.
What can you tell the children,
who ask for the past, the future?
Around you the fragrance of wildflowers
competes with the stench of bodies 
rotting too far beneath the rubble
to dig out. Each body a cry.  A story.