The Committed
By Hazem FahmyWhen I say “a Free Palestine in our lifetime” I mean it
is your moral duty to believe the last shekel has already been printed,
its destiny a glass frame in a museum next to a dollar,
Search Results
ode to the hare
By Mandy ShunnarahWe might have told them, if they’d asked,
the poppies wouldn’t make it to their melancholy
island, no matter how swift their sails snapped
across the sea. Then again, we love our land more
than they love theirs; we long to return, not flee.
That’s why you don’t see us boarding clippers
to claim to ground not ours. With our bountiful
fertile crescent, who needs more plenty?
Performativity
By Kat AbdallahMy teachers ask me
after seven months of genocide
if I’m holding up alright.
Form & Occasion
By Issam ZinehThe grammarians are up
in arms, and the war over
the semicolon has been reignited.
Today, the legislator notes his preference
for certain kinds of killers. Those,
one might say, with a European sensibility.
Exile’s Terrarium
By Edward SalemI’d planned a sculpture called
Getting Home, built from
my land in Palestine—
soil, shrubbery, stones,
an entire olive tree
chopped and dissected
into shippable parts
and air mailed in boxes
to my home in Detroit.
What the Fish Say / Over There
By A.D. Lauren-AbunassarMy godson wanted to go look at fish but I told him, today, beauty is canceled. We cried. I felt bad. I counted the unbeautiful like broken ribs. Shrapnel in the olive tree. Child-sized tourniquet. Saint Porphyrius’ watching and weeping. My father phones to tell me they’re down to vinegar; they pour into open wounds.
Shahrazad, circa 2024
By Aiya SakrOn the day of the first flour massacre,
nothing I have ever said has been untrue.
Fourteen thousand and three hundred white
PVC flags flutter in the early spring morning.
By the time I cross the lawn, the IDF have killed
another child, and another flag springs up
Like a poppy.
This simile is too easy.
When I am asked How Are You?? during the genocide of my people
By Janine Mogannam“I’m
pretty awful, all things considered. A few weeks ago
I couldn’t eat anything and now I’m constantly starving.
I know that’s a terrible thing to say.
I think my house plants might be dying but I’m not really sure?
They’re sad and limp-necked. I guess that’s a metaphor.
IN ANOTHER LIFE LINK IS A POET
By Summer FarahMy beloved city. We are the lucky ones. We worship a woman immortalized by stone, her trek impossible now. Our realms are severed by sky. Oh, what blood have we forgotten? Even when the sun sets the same monsters patrol our streets.
the butcher
By Ghinwa Jawhariwho loved my mother owned a shop on almira street & hung
among the glamorous posters of arabic singers, a black-and-white
photograph of muhammad al-durrah’s murder.