Marik

Marik returns from the market with one basket empty, the other filled with small loaves of stale bread. Most of the stalls are closed, fresh vegetables gone for weeks. She breaks the bread into small pieces, ladles a cup of lentils for each child. 

  

The baby lies quietly against her breast, sleepy from nursing and weak from the fever that has visited each family in her village. She watches the bones of her son and two daughters grow more visible each day. She wonders what they have done to deserve this.

Her neighbors talk of the foreigners who promise help, who will arrive soon in green trucks with boxes of dried milk and bags of flour. Gathering the thin shawl around her thin shoulders she wraps the baby tighter and kneels to say her evening prayers.