Conversation with my past love

My love, tell me why
you will not speak of 
the dead brown children
in Gaza tonight

Do you
             not mourn me
as I wade through
the lost words of all
my slaughtered poets

Do you 
            not dream of 
Flour bags, drenched in blood
Bombed cities, in your lungs
Clear skies, raining ash
Your leaders’, stagnant words
Your friends’, silences

My Jaan, will you not
weep with me
as all our, ancient towns
and once our, Fathers’ homes
are exiled to the wind
and scattered with the dust

Do you
            not feel that 
all the water
in this broken world
will not wash away
the wounds of our 
butchered children

Tell me now, past love,
how many
weeping Hinds* will it take
till you dream of

Flour bags, drenched in blood
Bombed cities, in your lungs
Clear skies, raining ash
Our leaders’, stagnant words
Our friends’, blind eye

Did you hear, lost friend,
Bisan flew a kite
in Palestine today
Do you think that the
missing kites of our
fallen children
will make their way
to our shores, one day

My love, I fear that
we have too much blood
on our hands today that
we cannot wash away
And all our, unsaid words
and all our, silences
drenched those flour bags
in Gaza, today

*Hind Rajab: Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl from the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City. She was killed by the Israeli military after being the sole survivor of Israeli tank fire on the vehicle in which she fled with six relatives.