Are You Willing to Live With That?

On Bombing

At first glance it could be
a child’s elementary school drawing,
not yet finished, of a building,
the windows long lines of rectangles
and splashes of color

but why are the tractors crawling
up the walls and why do people stand
miraculously sideways on the concrete and what
are the tiny wrapped packages
floating at the top left corner?

My youngest daughter has recently taken
to leaving notes around the house
for her mother and me, small rectangles
of white paper that say, “I love you dad,” or
"You’re the best dad ever,” or “I love when you read
to me.” She spends evenings
on the carpeted floor in her large bedroom
drawing, sketching, pretending. Small rectangles of color
she leaves lying
around the house, randomly
dropped here
or there.

“The United States never ever
targets civilians,”
he says, replying to allegations
we/us/our country bombed a school full of children,
elementary-aged girls.
“Whatever the report shows,

I’m willing to live with that

report,”
he
says.

Have you seen a child caught up in the throes of
drawing a picture, fresh
hands twisted around this new pencil,
focused so focused on nothing nothing
nothing else but what is so-slowly
emerging? Have you ever
watched a child sleep, the stillness
of their closed eyes inviting those who love
them to lean in and check
for a rising chest
a flickering eyelid
the sound of breath
signs of life.

Spring is here now. I stand on the green
grass in our front yard, though the air is cool.
The sun. I close my eyes. There is warmth there
and life and I hear a child
call to me from the house, signs
of life. I think
I spot a hummingbird but it is still
too early, a trick of the light. And I wonder
at the part I am playing
in this wide world,
and whether or not
I am willing to live with that.

According to Snopes and other fact-checking sites, this image has been verified as showing graves of school children killed in a US airstrike on Minab, Iran, on 2/28/26.