X Days Since the Genocide Began
POETRY FORMAT, 15 Jul 2024
Edward Salem | The New York Review of Books - TRANSCEND Media Service
I feel an obligation not to cry
around my dog
else she gets frightenedand shakes. I’m not comparing
children to dogs like Israel does,
but they share emotionalityand deep sensitivity and her shaking
reminds me of the videos I downloaded
onto my phone of Gazan childrenshaking in fear in hospitals
that had only weeks left until
US-made bombs destroyed them.I dreamt someone was
writing on my eye,
the tip of the ballpoint pensilently scribbling what I knew
but couldn’t see
to be Arabic calligraphy.Half-ticklish, half-squeamish,
I was drugged or otherwise
paralyzed, sunk in a fluffy bed.If I was Christian I might think
it was the intake process
for heaven, my virtues and sinsentered into the record. The eyewriting
began to feel like paper cuts
I couldn’t flinch from.I was going to heaven blind and
paralyzed. That might’ve been worse
than whatever hell was. Or is thiswhat was meant by hell—not a
separate place for a different passport,
just heaven’s lower caste?I couldn’t see it but I knew,
as if it had been whispered in my ear,
there were no Palestinians in hell.In the bright emptiness,
that’s what made me cry
and force myself to stop.
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Jul 18 Issue
Edward Salem’s first book of poems, Monk Fruit, will be published in 2025.
Tags: Genocide, Israel, Palestinians, Poetry, USA, Zionism
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