Rifqa

by Mohammed El-Kurd

What do you say to the children for whom the Red Sea doesn’t part? —from “No Moses in Siege,” p 31

Separation is like unmaking love ungluing names to places

a lucky refugeegrew vines of roses around the house; this time the roses had thorns just in case.

Context: they want cats declawed, they want knocked doors unanswered, they want the other cheek.

Here, walking feels like attempting to run in water.

Thing is I don’t want to be soft.

Do I believe in violence? Well I don’t believe in violation.

One day we will write about dispossession in the past tense.

Existed without space

If I squeezed their bread in my hand, my blood would drip out of it.

Why do you tell them a story they wrote?

Don’t your hands tire of gesturing?

After all, in the final analysis, man is a cause. —Ghassan Kanafani