Gaza has become a funeral home,
but there are no seats,
no mourners, no bodies.
In the caskets are nothing but
what remained of the dead’s clothes,
and on the crumbling walls are clocks
that have not moved for fourteen months.
Copyright © 2025 by Mosab Abu Toha. Published by permission of the author.
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
This poem is in the public domain.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
This poem is in the public domain.
if they preferred tea with honey
(take a step back)
if they watched police procedurals
if their ankle throbbed
or their hands swelled
and they didn’t complain
or they did
(take another step back)
if they missed being in love
with its anticipations
a hand caressing the small of their back
(take a third step)
or maybe they’d forgotten
held it like a souvenir postcard
from long ago
colors faded
if they had children and
their children had children and
their children’s children had children
or maybe they hadn’t forgotten
(bend knees)
but found instead a love deeper than love
fathomless and devout
if they were simply going through the motions
which now gave them a warm and glowing contentment
that came to them like breath
(bow)
if they recalled the headlines
from those other times
(bend knees)
the hours volunteering at a soup kitchen
writing pen pals in uniform
(bow)
if they remembered fear
or if they’d grown immune
so saturated with it
it had transformed into a fourth prayer
if they understood what happened when it happened
if their hearing caught the stranger’s cry
if they pondered for an instant
if they were dreaming or confused
(fall down)
the wind blows, the rain falls
the sick are healed
the bound released
gather exiles from the four corners of the earth
unto the land
reassemble
here
body upon body
En respuesta a le asesinato de once judíes, incluyendio a une de noventa y siete años que se decía era une sobreviviente de le Holocausto, pero no
si elle prefería le té con miel
(de une paso atrás)
si veía les programas policiaques
si le dolía le tobillo
o si sus manos se les hinchaban
y elle no se quejaba
o si sí
(de otre paso atrás)
si extrañaba estar enamorade
con sus anticipaciones
une mano acariciando le parte baje de su espalda
(de une tercer paso)
o tal vez se le había olvidado
y sostuvo le memoria como une postal
de hace mucho tiempo
les colores desvanecides
si tuvo hijes y
si sus hijes tuvieron hijes y
les hijes de sus hijes tuvieron hijes
o quizá ya no se acordaba
(doble les rodillas)
y en vez encontró une amor más profunde que le amor
insondable y devote
si simplemente pasaba por les movimientos
que ahora le daban une cálide y brillante satisfacción
que le vino como aliento
(reverencie)
si recordaba les titulares
de aquelles otres tiempos
(doble les rodillas)
les horas de voluntarie en une comedor de beneficencia
escribiéndole cartas a les amigues militares
(reverencie)
si recordaba le miedo
o si se volvió inmune
tan saturade que
le había transformade en une cuarte oración
si comprendió le que sucedió cuando sucedió
si su oído atrapó le grito de le extrañe
si se preguntó por une instante
si estaba soñando o confundide
(cáigase)
sopla le viento, cae le lluvia
les enfermes se curan
les atades son liberades
reúna exiliades de todes les rincones
para tomar le tierra
junteles
aquí
cuerpo sobre cuerpo
Copyright © 2021 by Achy Obejas. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 15, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
From The Language of Spring, edited by Robert Atwan, published by Beacon Press, 2003.
It’s dusk on a Tuesday in June. A hot wind
bears down and east. In my room, a stranger’s
hairclip lies like a gilded insect beside the sink.
Hours later, it’s still dusk; it will be dusk all night.
Last month, I cut the masking tape from a box my mother left
my sister and me. On the lid, she wrote, Life is hard, not
unbeatable. If I can do it, darlings, so can you. 2 am. A rosy dark
dusting the window, the heat a ladder into sleep.
Copyright © 2019 by Chloe Honum. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
This poem is in the public domain.
and you used to be The Richard Bey Show
and my sister’s spaghetti. Under a friar plum tree,
a simplified reading of “The Argonautica.”
You kept me full and entertained. I was that kind
of round child. Gorging on what was left over.
I didn’t want a real burden, my own ship or story.
I didn’t want to go on ahead. I didn’t want to
have to reverse into you. Into your apparatus.
I never wanted nostalgia. We used to know each other,
remember? Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid.
Not. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry.
Why did we have to pry open our patch of dirt?
Why couldn’t you always be acid wash
or those I CAN’T DRIVE 55 posters at the swap meet
or sunglasses. I never wanted to lay questions around
you. What if he takes another this year? What if
he’s difficult to talk my way out of? What if he eats me
only half-alive? What if all he is in his beach bum
orange is ghosts clothespinned to the laundry line?
Copyright © 2023 by Gustavo Hernandez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 8, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
This poem is in the public domain.