Eyes on Al-Shifa
Photo by Zayne Airall, Intersect Antigua-Barbuda.
Bravery had not traveled far to be there,
I thought, as men lifted him to a cart,
blood running scarlet across a white robe.
The voice in the video said he’d seen
too much: bombs in emergency care,
soldiers who would shoot him
in front of his patients. And bravery,
it repeats his words—I didn’t study medicine
to abandon the wounded when they are
in greatest need of care. Bravery lives too
in the tap on our shoulder when
no one stands behind us, when
a question or the strike of a courtroom
gavel reduces, smashes, erases the ill
and dying, Al-Shifa, almost all urgency.
It stopped euphemism from taking ground
when he refused to leave the hospital.
It is why the tall girl huddled
off to the side with other young patients
can come forward with no left leg.
Now she can speak to reporters, point
to Dr. Al-Nono, and nod yes for them all.
His eyes are on all the children, still.
