Burnt City

I bent down. I laid my newborn with his small soft belly on my back. One hand on my newborn’s back my other hand wraps my chador around me and my newborn. I have tied a hard, tight knot with the edges of the chador over my belly. I am standing now. My hands are free my feet are free. I and our newborn clinging to each other we must go in search of clean water a milking ewe a wheat field the shelter of a cave. I must eat I must drink warm milk must flow through the veins from my breast into the mouth of the newborn of our love stranded in the wasteland of an accursed war...