Forest of Noise: Poems

by Mosab Abu Toha

At fifth grade, I visit the school library. On a wall by the door, a poster claims, “If you read books, you live more than one life.” Now I’m thirty and whenever I look at faces around me, old or young, on each forehead I read: “If you live in Gaza, you die several times.”

Even your shadow will abandon you when there is no light.

We no longer look for Palestine. Our time is spent dying. Soon, Palestine will search for us, for our whispers, for our footsteps, our fading pictures fallen off blown-up walls.