October 27, 2023

For the Record By: Edel Ahmed

Poem for Palestine

For the Record By: Edel Ahmed

Hospitals have turned to rubble.
Ice cream trucks are filled with cold bodies.
Funerals paused.
Where do they lay their babies to rest?
When can they mourn?

Twenty-four hours' notice to evacuate over one million
Palestinians.
No destination in sight.
Bombing them as they try to leave.

Entire families wiped off public record.

No airbase. No army. No tank battalions. No air defense
systems. No naval ports. No oil refineries. No rail system. No
satellite systems. No attack helicopters. No food. No water. No
electricity.

No escape route.

Just children.
Just women.
Just men.
Just people.
Human beings asking for the right to live in their homeland.

When you declare a war on Gaza, what is it you're going to war
against exactly?