Rushda Rafeek
Taking the Road to Jerusalem
With keffiyeh men as garlands of hookah smoke we mistook for jasmine saints.
That fists don’t forget how many nightless graves it dug up after the war.
All of touch plummets a dozen estrangements here.
Since the dead brother broke concrete ricocheting blood oaths, anthurium.
Maybe, breath is one nation spat out as the quiet holocaust of mangled (s)pine.
The infeasible writhe of return, a keyhole search for no way out.
For decades you dreamt of Christ slinking through heaven’s peridot, checkpoints, house arrests and settlers who could mirror the thieves in themselves.
I want to tell you this goes beyond any divine revelation nursing the walk between symphonic and barbaric.
What do you do to douse each ghost sobbed at the lip of your cupid’s bow?
Demolition, defenseless, dying.
In spite of echoes raying Kanafani’s storms as olive souks of shrapnel.
“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children”.
Only I know how much I pray to make it easy for you, so easy for you.
You adored celestial surge. You, omen-sung shimmering citadels.
For the widow in tangerine trees, her eyes playing a gossamer trick of home.
Rushda Rafeek is currently based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and have been shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize UK (2017), nominated for the Pushcart Prize (USA) twice and has won the Nazim Hikmet Prize (USA) in 2018.