FOR THE 500th DEAD

PALESTINIAN

IBTISAM BOZIEH

Little sister Ibtisam,

our sleep flounders, our sleep tugs

on the cord of your name.

Dead at thirteen, for staring through

the window into a gun barrel

which did not know you wanted to be

a doctor.

I would smooth your life in my hands,

pull you back. Had I stayed in your land

I might have been dead too,

for something simple like staring

or shouting what was true

and getting kicked out of school.

I wandered the stony afternoons

owning all their vastness.

Now I would give them to you,

guiltily, you. not me.

Throwing this ragged grief into the street,

scissoring news stories free from the page,

but they live on my desk like letters, not cries.

How do we carry the endless surprise

of all our deaths? Becoming doctors

for one another, Arab, Jew,

instead of guarding tumors of pain

as if they hold us upright?

Little sister, once our supple fingers

curled around any twig.

Now even the orchards weep.

People in other countries speak easily

of being early, being late.

Some will live to be eighty.

Some who never saw it

will not forget your face.