A Scene Seen In a Video From Gaza

By Peacock Secrets

She is a little kid, five or six

White t-shirt caked in rubble dust

Girly neon pink pants, smothered in grit

Buried half upside-down

Folded at the waist

Packed under concrete debris

Body limp, now being rushed away.

I’m

hoping

she lives

He is a civil servant, digging.

Trained to be a firefighter.

Not to dig out dead kids.

He breaks down on his knees.

He doesn’t know

if she is even

alive.

He’s

hoping

she lives.

Are they her neighbors,

who were helping unbury

her?

Only one among 20,000 children killed.

Now even this firefighter is wailing.

Despondent, despairing.

What

is

hope?

They hold him and hug him,

They’re all

hoping

they live.

By Peacock Secrets