“We did nothing wrong! We did nothing wrong!”
a Palestinian boy, trapped
inside Gaza City’s Jabalia Refugee Camp, cries.
His bones appear intact
but his heart has been crushed,
his faith twisted in knots,
his innocence, had he any left,
rubbed out by the horrors of war.
He sits atop a massive concrete gravestone
not as King of the Hill, but a terrorized boy
imploring the world to intervene
to halt the horror of nighttime explosions
raining from Israeli jets.
Just above his shoulder
the Angel of Death hovers
picks his teeth with a splinter of charred wood
does a quick count to 600
anxious to claim another Palestinian child.
The boy’s head aches, a blast chamber of curses.
When his ears stop ringing
he will listen for voices
rising like smoke
through the mangled debris
of cement and steel
hoping to hear a message of defiance that claims
his family and friends are alive, have not surrendered.
He may not know it for a fact, but he senses that
every ten minutes
another young martyr
will be sacrificed in the name of an ancient Covenant
not unfamiliar to him
but not his own.
He knows well the story of Abraham and Isaac.
Knows better the story of Ishmael.
Lives it. May die because of it.
Sam is a Toledo poet and environmental activist. His poem, “I Take a Knee,” appeared in the Spring 2019 edition of Peace in Our Times.
