The Mothers and the Mediterranean
Summary
Destroy everything cried the mothers from their high balconies
wring the streetlights’ necks
make the trees eat dust
dismember the ladder the doll the spider's hammock
The children will play with the Sea
they will learn addition from the corpses piled on the sidewalks
subtraction from decapitated trees
An eye plucked up from the dust for a pistachio ice cream cone for a glass of hibiscus juice–
the merchant on the Corniche trades in everything that can be bought and sold
Tanks crossed the Mediterranean
The mothers called the dead and the children to come in before the bombardments
wept on their balconies and on the shoulder of the rain that rained no longer
green hands plucked the basil that startled at every explosion
stuffed the children
Only feathered creatures survive said the mothers
who knitted wings for the children
then pushed them off the balcony railings
Fly, my child
my love
light of my eyes
gathered them up from the asphalt with bruised hearts
replanted them in the garden at the foot of the sorrel that cured colic and calmed fears
Fly into the sun
you'll be a hummingbird when you're ten
a red sparrowhawk feared by the storm when hair grows on your palms
fly through air and blood and you'll become a sniper
The man who fixed pedestrians in his gun-sights
followed the sun's trajectory
his laughter splattered the blood of the sunset
Planning his night in the evening
his fists cried out on single women's doors
the omelette wolfed down standing
he returned to his roof
begged the rain to dilute him to a timid boy
with a diaphanous mother and a grassy house
his name on a cup hanging over the kitchen sink
A relic
the piece of shrapnel rubbed against his jeans
return to the innocence of daisy petals
You love me a little
A lot
Till death…
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- A Handful of Blue EarthPoems by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, pp. 41 - 54Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2017