i scroll instagram and find a photo: broadcasted
alongside advertisements, cries for help,
each one just another soft voice
in the storm’s dark eye–
palestinians all resisting,
reading mao with lips pursed,
pensively, all lined up,
side by side, brothers
                                   in arms, wishing:
they were just
                                   brothers, wishing:
                        for a sprawling summer day to drink
                        pomegranate wine
            and rip breads, dip them in honey
            & olive oils pulled from trees–
for every good food they’ve had the pleasure
of pressing to their tongues;
for a calm night where the moon rises slow
like an old friend
but they miss living more,
                                   wishing: for loving 
that doesn’t taste like ash,
doesn’t mean mourning–
fighting; 
             knowing
                                   it can be,
             knowing this
                                   does not need to be
                                   the end,
             knowing that
                                   we have nothing to lose
but our dirtied, rusting chains
and the dead that would die–
                                   that we would mourn–
anyway,
and that we must one day be free
if it’s the last thing we will ever be