The good husband
The good husband
stands vertically in the
kitchen, flat on his back
He washes the dishes
even when he is tired
The good husband
is my sweet father
He sweeps the floor
He listens to me
He is the only one who does
He babysits his granddaughter
He sits in the hot garden
next to his gambling son
who smokes a joint
and drinks whiskey alone
in the study. My father,
he doesn’t know what to do
about his depression,
about his cancer,
about his wife who doesn’t
love him, and he wishes to
marry another, he wishes
to change his religion
He eats my food, my rice,
my fish and cold potatoes
and says it tastes good
Dad’s lips are pink, he sips water
He is a good man, a beautiful tree
I rest under the pale shade of that tree
I am one of his branches
He is a wounded man, his mood is a particle,
a vein, some fruit
He has been a good husband
We are Kafka, dad and me
We are gazelle, light-footed
dad and me, it has always been dad and me
I don’t dedicate poems anymore to people
I’m through with love
He says that I’m a good woman
I’ll find someone one day
I tell him he doesn’t have to say that
I open the curtains
The sun falls into my lap
My mother locks me
back in the attic
They put my father
in the sitting room
He writes on paper in pencil
saying he has found a cure
for all social ills
Saying he has found a cure
for bladder cancer
Saying he has found a cure
for me too
They let me out
when I’m good
Only when I’m good
No more fruit on the trees
A man steps out of his shower
and a bomb falls out of the sky
On the other side of the world
a woman walks into IKEA
as a bomb falls out of the sky
There is nothing left for us to do
but to get out of this hell hole
There is nothing left for us to do
but to get out of this place
There is nothing left for us to do
but to go to paradise
and live there
There are no settlers in paradise
There is, in other words,
no settler occupation in paradise
When we die, we must go to paradise
Does this make sense to you?
This bomb
This invasion
This war
This genocide
This total annihilation
It is not making sense to me
But I forgive
If I don’t, I’ll go insane
Little Flower
The sun fades away
into a key in the palm of my hand
A significant other
disappeared into the snow,
into the field
You were the white-hot sand
that I walked upon,
that shouted beneath my feet
Bombs fell into the mountains
Into the all-girls school
Into the hospital
There is rubble that is a day old
There is rubble that is ancient
Ancient and wise
There is no longer
any fruit on these trees
The ancient and wise
fruit are long gone