Adi Magazine

report: 70% of Gaza land designated as security zone

an engine haunts my body—
  one hand iron,
  one leg machine.
  it drags itself
  through the alleys of my ribs.

do you smell flesh?
  taste blood

 in the crust of yesterday’s bread?
  can you kiss the warm lips
  of a frozen child?

report: death toll surpasses 50,000—sources unverified

i mourn
  the ones who lived,
  licking water
  from beneath their graves.

to sleep,
  they must die.

O death—
  how sweet.
 
  give me the records
  of the murders.
 
  write my name—
 
  Malak.
  not: “female, age unknown.”
  not: “Gazan civilian in a blue plastic bag.”
  write it today,
  tomorrow,
  again—
  until metaphor
  is no longer a metaphor.

report: concerns raised over inflammatory artistic expression

limbs
  cling to ceilings,
  trees
  nailed to walls,
  a bloodstain
  spins

 in the washing machine.

the verses—
  they falter.
  what if the writing
  grows dull?

in the violence
  of language—
  and silence
  biting its nails—
  a cracked lullaby
  still hums in the room.

the chanting—
  it stays,
  but coldness
  has seized the world.

how barbaric—
  to write poetry
  amid genocide.

report: children caught in the crossfire of escalating violence

mother asks,
  habibi,
  what shall I give you
  to sleep?
  a pigeon?
  a toy?
  a poppy?

she whispers: hae, hae, hae…
  her hands
  tremble
  over an empty plate.

you enter the room.
  no body there—
  peekaboo, peekaboo,
  where is the kid?

a wingless angel,
  only the scythe—
  the edge of the sky.

a sunless light
  hunched in the corner,

  still waiting—

and the lullaby—
  how broken
  it’s become.