How overmuch we died…
It wasn’t truthful bully for the flood to surge,
for the h2o to transportation the procession of the location connected its bloody shoulders,
it wasn’t truthful bully for agelong beingness to airs astatine the enactment of endurance,
so said my symptom to the electrocardiograph,
coffee overflows, conscionable similar quality bulletins from the hospital,
and rescue teams lining up connected monitors of the un-seeable.
No shadiness dances with my palm,
nothing near successful the day’s haggard pockets
but dizzying hunger and rows of rubble,
the flood surges and tanks chatter,
how galore of america died, nary matter,
how overmuch we died, nary remembrance to count.
It wasn’t truthful bully to invitation Gaza
to the kids’ barbecue party,
they slipped past puerility sorrow
leaving their hearts similar birds
on the windows of the house
and flying distant they left
the dishes bare arsenic mirrors,
without waiting, they left
us to navigator the gravel,
the firewood moaning,
the flood roaring, and the jets,
and warfare a hideous sky,
malice fermenting successful a fishy helmet.
Background euphony for recurring holocaust.
How overmuch we died, nary matter,
burnt hands don’t cognize to count.
June 7, 2025
Translated from Arabic by Ammiel Alcalay
