Day 68

In late afternoon my friend’s child plays with his dog.
Shadows of trees lie across pavement
like railroad tracks; not
trees you can touch but ghost trees.  Still,
the child plays at not stepping on them. 
Today I heard someone say
that, when the bombing ends, thousands of ghosts
will hang in the air over Gaza, will ask for time, for a last word.
Voices empty of bodies.  Moaning, imploring. 
My friend’s child throws a ball for his dog
and the dog chases it,
carries it back.  The child
throws it again:  farther. If I could draw his face.
Learn it by heart. What if he.  What if a bomb. This minute.
The dog bounds back to the child, the child takes the ball
from the dog’s mouth. Winter.  Night falls quickly. Shadows
deepen and disappear.  What heart
can I learn this by?  Everything, it seems,
is being absorbed into this darkness.