poem
Volume 26, Number 4

Leaf

“He was never warm in his entire life. Not once.”
—Juma Gul, whose month-old son froze to death in a Kabul refugee camp (The New York Times)

In the dark the call to prayer—
the faithful huddle under plastic

and canvas bellied with snow, but
food like fire is here a dream

from which you wake to 5 a.m.
wails and beside you his body

the size of bread, whose mistake
was not staying awake, and now

like bread or the dead leaves
he is brown, not soft, his eyes

and the sun three black stones
on this grave


—Ed Taylor