Editor's note: Basman Derawi is a physiotherapist with Gaza's Ministry of Health. The hospital is familiar ground to him.

In the hospital,
an amputee lies on a bed
touching the stump of his leg,
tenderly, crying.

In another room,
a young girl wears
an oxygen mask,
her chest heaving visibly.

In the hallway, a young man
walks with crutches,
swinging his bent leg
despite the weight of clamps and screws.

Aches and prayers
fill the walls, the halls,
their vessels looking to God
under fire, blockade,
and a silent sky.