There are things this poem would rather not say:

We ate labneh and bread in your tents


When we had no water
          we drew it from your well

	
Your camels carried the sand to build our houses
          you built them—your hands—


Fig-tree          prickly-pear          human-flood


You were the wasteland we made bloom

Copyright © 2011 by Elana Bell. Used by permission of the author.