I.
I walked to the woods today,
to watch as caterpillars descend on cue,
as my kin do-
from skeletons of battered homes
packed away safely in unsafe zones.
Her shelter made tougher than
tent,
concrete,
or brick—
it is God’s witness
and their faith.
In my forest,
I’ll forage for tree limbs,
Picking only (at) post-amputation bark for the pretend mercy of it.
& I chopped the wood on a bed of watermelons,
soaked in the sweet, sticky, pink splatter of insides…
(o’) I am in blood.
& the fruit recall their final harvest,
(which was) unattended.
& they beckon me into memory’s hall
so I might sing their choir at funeral.
II.
But I haul the wood home instead,
glad for the excuse… (to forget).
At home, I build a fire.
& tonight my grandfather’s blood is the kindling.
Laid to quench the earth at the edge of Lebanon and his home.
because –
to the in-between
– he could return.
Tonight,
Last Night,
and Tomorrow–
I am the kindling.
My embers will play to the eternal irony:
I am charred but ignited:
my family name cannot be kept without punishment,
imminent.
die for the cause or because of it.
III.
& now I ask (you),
How do I beat the fire to death?
With my bare hands?
With my dull teeth?
What can I strangle to freedom?
Tell me–
because I’ll abandon it all,
I’ll place myself firmly on the line,
out from without the in-between.
such that one more child might outlive me,
instead.
(i ask again)
What starves the white man long enough that he might demand the cessation of my fire?
That he might abandon its perpetrator to reckon with their sins,
scorched onto their skin,
in a way of ash wedged between the trigger’s nail and its sniper’s sleep.
Long enough that he and her might repent every day until judgement.
Divine and mine.
The crack, pop, simmer of my primitive mind has eluded, (no-- evacuated) the cave,
Discovered my shadow a hundred times over
Remained starved for the dancing imagery of a promised olive tree between the river, sea
and my reverie…
The reflection of a utopia I raised myself onto.
But the inferno burns bright in Rafah tonight…
And the child’s life
– already on its way to heaven’s seventh door–
has been engulfed
into breath
by an enemy’s vengeful pyre.
I saved none.
No one survived me.
Especially myself.