The blood had turned into a dry clot
Of ugly red streaks
Coloured black with ash in the cavities of his leg
And compacted with pieces of glass,
from their favorite China window
Light shone through the gashes in his arm
He could see it flicker as he reached out to touch her head,
Trying to draw her attention without making a sound
But she didn’t turn
Her hair was bleached in the blend of dust and smoke and wooden shards,
That had erupted around them
And her face was fused into the ground, her fingertips cemented into the crevices of the plastered floor
As though the heavens, wished to hide her eyes from the reality around her
They graced her with the gift of an early sleep
She was still young, and he could see that they had allowed her to take the little doll
which she was grasping with her free thumb,
the one he had bought for her at the fair a year prior.
He could not bear to watch, but could neither bear to look away
His head fell back, colliding with the frames which had fallen from the walls
And he heard the glass of their pictures, their memories, crack beneath his head
And he prayed and prayed and prayed
Chanting under his breath, he had no desire to stay
He begged with a lone tear, that the demons take him away.