Day 1,119

For Tahani Shalalfeh

Their sister was six years old.
They are bending over her body,
which someone has wrapped
in a blanket. The two
small boys — one
older, one younger
than she was — are laying flowers
on their sister
and saying goodbye.
Probably they had been playing
together just before
she was killed. Possibly
they had squabbled
over some toy, some
morsel of food, something
she had that one of them
wanted. Now they are crying.
Now, through their tears,
they are saying her name
over and over, as though
they could wake her.

Day 1,118

You dream a horse
has come to you
where you live in the tent camp.
A large horse, a horse
the mahogany brown
of a treetrunk. A nose
soft as velvet, soft
as what you recall
of your mother’s touch.
You dream a horse. In the dark
interrupted by the buzz
of drones, you dream
his breathing. In the windy tent,
the tent with flaps
that don’t close, with a floor
that floods in the rain,
you dream a horse
who can carry you
on his back: not
to some faraway land,
but to a time you remember.
A time before genocide.
A time when your mother
was still alive. When
your house was a place
you counted on.
Over the broken land
he goes, your hands
gripping his mane, hair
flying behind you.
He promises you can ride him
all the way home to those
happier times. And,
in the dream, you believe him.

Day 1,117

Had you lived in another place.
Had you been able
to stay in your home.
Had you had access to better food,
uncontaminated water, the kind
of medical care available
just miles away. Had you had
all these things and now
been diagnosed with a tumor,
your body might be strong enough
to sustain itself, to endure
surgery, chemotherapy, radiation.
Had you been born to a mother
who herself had not
been malnourished. Had there not
been a genocide, this genocide
which makes it impossible
even to see a doctor
until it’s too late. Name the tumor
after the oppressor, name it
cruelty, sadism, deprivation.
Name it deliberate starvation.
Name it cold and unbearable heat.
Name it makeshift tents, broken
connections. Name it
explosions. Name it fire.
Name it bombings and drones.
Name it loss after loss. This
may be the last one, the one
that costs you
what you have left,
the one that will claim you,
quickly or slowly, from
the inside out.

Day 1,116

Where are the children
who used to play together
on your street? All afternoon
once the school day was over,
they’d kick balls, chase each other,
sit on the steps of the houses
eating bread and fruit. Their voices
punctuated your hours. You listened
for them through the open
windows, waited for their shouts
and songs to keep you company
as you went about the tasks
of your day. Where
have they gone? How many
are still alive? How many in tents,
how many in hospitals, how many
buried under the earth, buried
under the rubble? How big
have they grown, those
who haven’t been slaughtered?
Far from the ruined street
you lived on, you try
to count them, try
to remember their names.

Day 1,115

You wanted to be a surgeon,
to heal, with your hands and your eyes,
children who needed healing.
Now you’ve been blinded
and lost your right hand
in a bombing. How
to find another dream?
What else is it possible to do?
The genocide has stolen your friends,
stolen your brothers, stolen
your father. And now
it has stolen this! Could you still
study medicine? Could you be
a doctor who listens, examines
with one hand? Could you hear
in the voice of a small child
brought to you,
where his pain is lodged?
Every day you are thinking
of possibilities. Every day
you are looking
for other solutions. The genocide
will not take everything! you tell
your friends, your sister,
the bright autumn air,
while a new dream begins
to take shape within you.

Day 1,114

The doctor whose hands
carefully managed the instruments
that removed the bullet
from your child’s brain.
The doctor who knew
what your cousin’s illness
was, though he didn’t have
medicine to treat it.
The doctor who held
your friend’s son
and told her
he wouldn’t live, and sat
with your friend
through the night
as the child drew his last
breaths, when she
could have gone back
to where she was living.
Doctors murdered. Imprisoned.
Tortured for saving lives
the oppressor doesn’t want saved.
You are watching your child
running along the path
between tents. Barefoot.
Chasing his friends. His laughter
rings through the air.
He is alive, who well might not
have been. His doctor, long
dead, has left this legacy.

Day 1,113

You could not give your friend
a proper burial
because she was handed
to you — her whole family
having been killed
in the bombing — in a plastic bag.
You were the closest one
she had left. You were
given the bag of her,
the weight of whatever parts
of her young body
they could retrieve.
The hands you held.
The legs that walked
the length of the beach with you.
The hair you always envied.
A bag of flesh. A bag
of memories. No whole body
to touch, wash, pray over.
You could not bury her
in a proper grave
but you could lay the bag
in the earth, earth you dug for hours
with your hands, with a spoon,
until it was soft. Earth
as near as you could get
to the rubble of the house
she was martyred in.

Day 1,112

for Shaimaa Hussein

The friend you thought
you’d share all your life with
is gone. Dead with her family
in a bombing at the start
of the genocide. The friend
who wrote poems, who brought
you presents, who sat on the beach
with you before everything happened,
chatting about school, exams,
graduation. The friend who promised
to meet you every week
beside the sea
so you could walk together,
talk, share a meal. She’s
gone, with everything else
that’s gone. And you remain
to regret the small slights,
the moments of thoughtlessness,
the infinitesimal betrayals. Your face
turned from hers
for a moment. A message
not sent. An arm not taken.
Had you known, you say
to yourself — but how
could you have known?
How could either of you
have known?

Day 1,111

The hospital has no power. None.
How will your child
have his treatment now?
Will the cells that could kill him
outdistance the ones
that could keep him alive?
How much time does he have left
for this race? His skinny body.
His body that never has enough
food, enough water, enough
blankets to keep him warm
in the tent on chilly nights.
If the hospital were able
to do what it should. If
the quickly dividing cells
could be chased from his blood,
could be defeated
by good cells. If your child’s blood
were strong enough
to consume the bad cells
on its own … All
these thoughts
run through your mind
as you carry him back
to the tent. He’s too tired
to walk, too weak
even to notice the tears
streaming down your face.

Day 1,110

The daughter you had
is not this child. Not
this girl who barely speaks,
who sits all day in the corner
of the tent, tearing bits
of paper, sweeping them up
with her one hand, making
a hill of them, a tower, a small house.
Holding the paper between
her teeth, which she’d
have done with
her gone hand, her hand
that used to write, hold
a fork, hold
her brother’s hand. The daughter
you had wrote stories, climbed trees.
Laughed with her friends. Loved
warm nights, could name
the biggest constellations.
Is she anywhere there? Did she
disappear with her blown-off
hand? Will she return,
emerge from that thin
wan body, unbroken again
despite everything?