In This Time Of War
For the Palestine –Isreali war
I look out of the window & exhale. & the trees exhale.
& I pick up all the bodies as I do pebbles at the seashore.
I smith my fears into a cannon ball, fire at my grief aiming
to cleave it into harmful remembrances. I mistake the skin for clay
while I mold a gun out of a boy’s elbow. In this time of war,
the rain falls in droplets & the sun parches, every ache meant to
soften hardens into a plague. In this time of war,
the body is a bob between a bullet & a bomb, learning
how to resist the wind. How not to pendulum into
a wreckage. In this time of war, a zygote becomes a boy.
A boy becomes a pool of blood. & a pool of blood flowers
into a red rose. In the pages of my manuscript, I calcify my
grief with every metaphor. I can almost hear a voice that
is not a voice winding through the tip of my pen. & I repeat
after my silence. I say [ ]. & the poem says [ ]. & this
country did not see it coming —amour tanks & an ambush
of soldiers. & they are pleading. & bleeding. & weeding
anything that greens like peace. A woman weeds out her son’s
scent from her memory. A son saints his mother in an elegy.
& in this time of war, everything that glitters is guillotine.
gasoline. gunpowder. graveyards. & grace, grace, grace, grace,
grace. & a woman squeezing god into her son’s mouth. In
this time of war, the people pour their prayers into a very
large lavatory watching it seethe, hoping that the vapour
settles in God’s ears. In this time of war, the priest cannot tell
God’s voice from silence. So, he faces the congregation &
says [ ]. & they say [ ].
& God says [ ] [ ].