Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

by Mosab Abu Toha

Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.

When I was asked to fill out a form for my U.S. J-1 visa application, my country, Palestine, was not on the list. But lucky for me, my gender was.

My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986. The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.

I weave my poems with my veins. I want to build a poem like a solid home, but hopefully not with my bones.

They once said Palestine will be free tomorrow. When is tomorrow? What is freedom? How long does it last?

Children learn their numbers best when they can count how many homes or schools were destroyed, how many mothers and fathers were wounded or thrown into jail.

The city no longer exists except in the craters. I have nowhere to go except down a new, untrodden road.

For those living on the other side, we can see you, we can see the rain when it pours on your (our) fields, on your (our) valleys, and when it slides down the roofs of your “modern” houses (built atop our homes).

The river that separates us from you is just a mirage you created when you expelled us. IT IS ONE LAND!

Palestine is also out of place: Its map falls off my wall.

You may encounter songs in Arabic, poems in English I recite to myself, or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard. When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear. Put them back in order, as you would do with the books on your shelf.

But I’m not difficult in any way. I will undress myself and show you my shoulders, how dust has come to rest on them, my chest, how tears have wet its thin skin, my back, how sweat has made it pale, my belly, how hair has covered my navel,

When you are a poet, you need to be saying something that cannot be said by other people. Poets don’t necessarily need to be first-rate readers of poetry, because when they start to write poems they already have what they need, they’ve been living it. When I tell my story—to anyone—it’s as if I’m reciting poetry.