Translated by: Yasmine Haj

 

​

Sina, my darling,

I just boarded the plane carrying me back to you.

I’ll see you soon and give you the gift you asked for.

I brought, as promised,

all of Peppa Pig’s pink girlfriends.

As for a gift from the poetry festival— 

the poster with my picture, with the word “Gaza” suspiciously far placed—

I’d refused it,

so that I’m not searched and arrested on suspicion of antisemitism.

I only accepted the pin,

a fruit-shaped pin.

 

Can you believe it, Sina? Our flag, which flaps like birds of prey, 

resplendent, which sings like it were millions of mouths,

is now a watermelon slice.

 

I pin the watermelon to my shirt and pass through the airport,

I walk like a fluttering flag.

Gaza’s great wing and mine,

casting one sole shadow

that will plunge the airport into darkness.

In my stride there is swagger and a glimmer of survival.

I’ll survive, just as I’d survived the Romans, Ottomans, English, and

the Haganah gangs before which my family waved their white hearts and said:

“Let us live.”

I survived but with a body that rattles whenever it revolts,

whenever it’s silenced into sitting, amputated, like a snail,

whenever it refrains from punching a face returning from the toil of genocide,

suddenly appearing in a supermarket.

I refrained because I’m scared,

so scared,

scared of a little pig

disguised in pink skin.

 

The gangs didn’t cleanse my village, they let us live.

Along the path which seemed safe towards the mountain, 

rocks of language crumbled and fell into our mouths.

I was never exiled from land itself, but from the story I never uttered.

 

I’m the snail that swallowed the rock’s crumbles.

I’ll crack up like a thirsty land and

in my forehead the wound will expand,

from which the songs that once gauzed it with hope will seep out,

and I’ll walk with a face forever open.

 

While looking for one thing, we end up finding another.

In the airplane—

as I carry Peppa Pig’s girlfriends with me

and slowly crawl out of a sticky snail body—

as I look through the window for the actual homeland

that transcends a watermelon slice,

I might find that self of mine, fallen from fantastic heights,

from atop the clouds,

like a little pin.