Day 541

The boy, sixteen, wounded
in an airstrike, was put back together
by a surgeon.  He was recovering,
about to be sent home.  He would
have been cared for, rested, come
back to health.  To himself.  The surgeon,
from another country, risking
his own life to be there, stands,
desolate, in what remains
of the hospital.  He would have
lived a normal life, he is saying
about the boy.  But now
he’s dead.  Dead
with his young hopes
for his life.  Dead 
with his body, perfectly
repaired, strong, healing.
The doctor’s skill, his care,
his joy at the boy’s recovery —
they accompany the boy
to the grave, where his young,
perfect body —
whole again with the surgeon’s
work, then crushed again —
will lie for the rest of what
would have been his normal life
and then forever.