Rifqa

by Mohammed El-Kurd

I thought I was a radical poet before, but Palestine uprooted any sense of who I thought I was. I became more me, more true, more fearless. I saw the audacity of evil and how it can be rationalized.

As a child born on the day of the Nakba, what would Mohammed seek to be except a testament, a siren, a freedom song conjuring a key that fits a hole in a heart the size of Falasteen, from the river to the sea.

Solidarity is not just about our shared pain or struggle but also, most importantly, about our shared joy, visions, and dreams.

May they help you find the words for what you already know to be true.

The freest people on earth are not controlled by hatred or fear but moved by love and truth.

Body—a storm in waiting rooms frowning, spitting, sitting in a whirlpool, waiting on rhythm to resurge on surgeries to affirm on gavels to blow in favor of your truth.

Separation is like unmaking love ungluing names to places undoing God.

She wentshelter to shelter. I wonder, was it the shelter that ran from her?

I cried—not for the house but for the memories I could have had inside it.

They tell the storyof the particular events: organized, plural, ongoing.

People who give excuses for executions fear the rifle more than they fear the reason.

Was it because there were no more graves in Gaza that you brought us to the beach to die?

Here, we know two suns: earth’s friend and white phosphorus.

What do you say to children for whom the Red Sea doesn’t part?

My permit: these wrinkles

older than your country’s existence.

It is thosestuffing sand inmy mouth that worry me mostsaying there aresofterwaystosaythis. Thing is I don’t want to be soft.

Say evict & I’ll still say theft. hyperlink them to death. A reporter asks if I believe in violence. Irony is a constant guest.

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

This isn’t an epiphany, though Poems aren’t for that

“How far is Palestine?” She asks. It’s a fifteen-hour plane ride away, a dozen unresolved UN resolutions away, a few history lessons away, a hundred and some military checkpoints away, too much G4S-provided asphyxiation. Crossing back and forth like that, that’s talent, she says.

theater over thunder.

I have never once felt free anywhere: not with the Jordanian passport; not in Santa Monica, the American Tel Aviv; not in New York, the American Tel Aviv; not in Tel Aviv, the American Tel Aviv.

Not breaking cycles if that’ll break her heart.

You want to give out mirrors like they’re brochures?

They brought divinity to the crime scene to avoid justice. Justice should eat something.

[Martyr] bought three oranges and never made the juice.

What’s a resumé to a tank?

carving their cities under my skin,

We’re supposed to say thanks. They acknowledge our blood on their hands.

As if God were a real estate agent.

There’s this naïve belief that Palestinians will acquire credibility only once they’ve amassed respectability. I did this to appear rational and unhostile. The truth, however, is very hostile.