Because we named the land in blood and ink and everything held by the land to our use we named— dirty with the name— because we bought this land when ash became sky and the smell of burning drifted because my grandmother dreamed it instead of eating death and now new trees grow over the graves because the ruined promise because two pounds of shrapnel drawn from Noams back because Salim's house forced open like a jaw a bag of pita scattered where the kitchen was because we can survive in any soil like rats because until the end of the world we will scratch out the name
Copyright © 2011 by Elana Bell. Used by permission of the author.