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A betrayal
to stand
with your hand
over your heart
and sing
the song
of the country
occupying
your country
to read every star
on the flag
above
your country’s flag
and see the last one
there: small, white
and pointed
stitched into the blue
with a thin thread
as if
it has always
been that way
as if
it can never
be undone.
Originally published in Black Renaissance Noire. Copyright © 2013 by Brandy Nālani McDougall. Used with the permission of the poet.
For Palestinian poet Reefat Alareer, with lines from his poems
We live.
We live.
We do.
——Refaat Alareer
You were killed today December 7th
my birthday It was today son of Shujaiya
It must have been hard for him on days
when the sun hit the muddy delta,
sending up what smelled like failure,
rotten and man-made. Still, he drove
his old, rusty car down Pacific to
the college, where he sat by those
half his age who knew little of how
they would begin, how easily beginnings
Before the land was tamed by industry,
the oceanside resorts and pineapple plantations,
before the cane knife's rust, the dark time of sickness,
the coming of cannons, the bitter waters drunk,
before the metallic salt of blood, the rain emptied
into rivers, the winds carved valleys and mountains,