Child’s memory
The cold clings to dreams,
Frozen like scattered toys, in the dust of what was home.
While others light candles,
We count the stars through holes
Where our ceiling used to be,
Remember when grandmother
Named constellations for us, told stories
Of ancient heroes who never faced such dragons.
Now, we trace new patterns
In the debris of our street, looking for familiar shapes
In a world reshaped by thunder.
Salt and Phosphorus
The city will collapse like a lung in the blast, the stones turn to memory and memory to dust, but there will always be someone counting prayer beads in these streets where children's shoes lie scattered like fallen olives, among grandmothers who rock empty cradles, always a slow procession of smoke writing its testament to the dawn, always these perfect cages of light between buildings where bombs flower in darkness at the marriage of this fury and this silence and a mother's keening—her wild words spiraling through corridor after corridor of time where the homeland burns, its face bright as phosphorus, to pour its mercy and impossible wounds across my blood, and we will never surrender, though they take everything else they cannot take the salt of our tears or the bread in our bones or this endless falling through the throat of history where even our screams have screams and every broken window holds a child's reflection perpetual as starlight, singing.
Ahmad Ibsais is a Palestinian-American immigrant and first-generation student. Currently in law school, Ahmad hopes to use his words to cement the memory of his people as they fight their erasure. Ahmad is a published writer, having contributed guest essays in 1996, and is actively writing for Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and other international outlets.