Ahmad Ibsais 

“why don’t you just leave”

  (after a conference, somewhere in the empire)  

he said

why don’t Palestinians just leave,

at least then they’d be alive 

and i didn’t say

that we have left 

and died anyway

that leaving is a kind of dying too 

just with better lighting 

he said he was “Ottoman” 

like a legacy 

like a pardon 

like he wasn’t speaking to the empire’s child 

but to its ghost 

and i thought of the ledgers 

where our names were counted like wheat

i thought of all the wells they sealed in my grandmother’s village

and the stones her brothers threw at the soldiers 

because that’s all they had left 

stones and mothers 

i wanted to ask him 

do you ask the earth 

why it doesn’t leave the earthquake? 

do you ask the olive tree 

why it’s still rooted after the fire? 

but i didn’t say that 

i said 

nothing 

because I only had rage to offer 

and maybe it was the coffee, or the badge that said “Palestine below my name,

or the ballroom carpet, patterned like all hotel carpets—-

something loud enough to cover grief 

but i was tired 

of being asked to explain 

my own wound to the knife 

tired of being 

the Palestinian on the panel 

the Arab with the accent they can’t quite place 

the American who has to smile when Gaza is mentioned 

because if they don’t smile, they’ll say you’re too angry 

tired of having to choose 

which half of myself to apologize for 

depending on the room 

i said 

nothing 

but in my head

i wrote a new conference name tag 

it read: 

this land was not empty

we did not leave 

we were made to 

The Inheritance 

The solider leaned over 

Me

Demanding 

              Why do you stay? 

Oh, I said 

These streets run through 

My chest like rivers 

               Each stone speaks my name 

But still 

He aimed 

Through smoke 

               You must disappear 

As if bullets could shatter memory

As if occupation could divorce blood from soil