In 2018, Palestinians living in Gaza,
over 80% of whom are already refugees
from other parts of Palestine, decided
that they were tired of waiting for the right of return.
We talked this morning in class about the right of return
being an individual human right that every refugee in the world
has.
So they were tired after decades and decades
of waiting to go home and decided they would just get up
and walk to the border, because in many cases,
the ancestral villages and towns that these people are from
are within walking distance.
And that is described in the United States as "nonviolent
resistance."
So Palestinians engaging in that nonviolent resistance in Gaza
were met with Israeli sniper fire.
And so for Friday after Friday, families
would come and just walk to the border.
And they would get shot at.
And this went on for months.
So this poem commemorates that time.
Variations on a Last Chance
The fence does not hold.
The wire sheds its barbs, softens to silk thread.
The snipers run out of bullets.
The desert, as it always has, of its own volition, blooms.
The snipers are distracted, sexting their girlfriends.
The snipers' eyes are blinded by smoke from our burning tires.
The snipers wonder if they will ever see the end of us.
The fence does not hold.
The snipers take a lunch break.
The bullets melt in their chambers.
The bullets disintegrate when they
reach the word PRESS on Yasser's vest.
The news finally breaks the stillness around us.
The bullets will themselves away from the boy's skull.
The boy's sandals sprout wings and he
hovers above the bullets' path.
The snipers lose interest in shooting at medics
evacuating the wounded.
The snipers make eye contact with one of us and see.
There are enough saline bags at the hospital.
The snipers shoot and miss and miss and miss.
We outrun the snipers.
We bury the dead at the fence, let their roots
reach the other side of home.