As if for the first time

We’ve seen the pictures. We, who weren’t there. The
ravaged cities, the wounded buildings, silent in sepia tones;

rubble and contorted metal, a toy, dusty, half-buried under
what was a wall, a window, a refuge, a home; a little boy

washed up on a faraway coast, kids playing on a beach,
paused forever, the horizon ablaze with a thousand suns;

a sentence unfinished, the words still hovering, without
lips, without sound; dreams perched on hollowed-out

vehicles, with no sleep, no dreamer, no shore — we’ve
seen them all, we who weren’t there, ugly smoke rising

over what-might-have-been. Still, we shudder. Still, we are
surprised. As if for the first time. As if for the last time. Never

again. Never again. How does it work, this seeing and not
knowing, this knowing and not seeing, this forgetting and

not wishing to remember, this forgiving ourselves over and
over again, this unbearable faith in tomorrow morning.