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It was possible for these birds,

Which feed on the trash of the universe in Gaza

And drown in a river of exhaustion and darkness

And their bodies smashed beneath the rain of hunger

And rising smoke dust

From the chimney of the relentless massacre

To win prizes in physics, mathematics, and literature

And the various sports

Adjacent to my obsessions,

About lost identity

And between here and there

nothing

Except that the sides around me shrank;

To become a grave the size of my corpse

For alienation there is a verse

Recited by the Nakba at her funeral

For her only heirs

In cold exile

Between here and there

This lunacy is larger than you my love

Its harshness

Its fatal sins

That the delicacy of your untarnished hands can’t endure

Your palms that hold the country’s oranges

A beauty mark on your waist

And your hair strewn

Over the shoulders of truth

has the saltiness of the sea

And the scent of mud

and the sweetness of both

Seventy five years

Gnawed upon by hyenas

Of green and blue and red

And the colour of our nations within us

Seventy five years

Since the dawning of Gaza’s only sigh

The sights like a river rushing into the mouths of her children

With the missiles of an f16

And so the nation poured from it drop after drop

Since the child in us ceased to question

And, panting, began to stretch out his fingers and dry throats

I write so tales don’t end
so war ends
I must write
not for anything but
to keep my emotions awake
to retain my humanity
***
My mother never taught me tatreez
the embroidery of my bleeding pain
from a cassette of memory
but she taught me
the language of the proletariat
the downtrodden
the chase after bags of flour