Ruina
after Solmaz Sharif
Ya’aburnee—may you bury me, says a lover in Arabic
Whereas not all Arabs speak the same language
Whereas we visit the ruins of Byblos, to look at the remnants of Rome
Byblos may have been occupied seven thousand years before Christ
Whereas It is complicated because it is a sacred place and we do not want to use live ammunition
Said the IDF spokesman when Israeli snipers surrounded the Church of Nativity
Whereas Samir the bell-ringer is shot in the chest and wrapped in plastic
Whereas the Palestinian residents of Bethlehem were unable to bury their dead
Whereas what is the sound that makes God
Believe your side of the story
Whereas Palestinian refugees in Lebanon still cannot own land
Whereas my parents are born as tourists to the ruins
Whereas in the United States the Muslims are ruining this country
Whereas on the 11th of September I see my father cry for the first time
Whereas my father teaches me the short syllables of Alhamdulillah and
Democracy Whereas the diagnosis of patriot will not cure enemy
Whereas during an anonymous phone call he is told to go back to Iran
I visit his refugee camp at the outskirts of Beirut in clean sneakers
Whereas in my sole authorized nation it is my civic duty to vote
For the candidate who will administer more polite death
Whereas the fantasy of love is also a fantasy of return
I wanted you in the damp green; slow as rot, a home of gape
Whereas Frida names a drawing “Ruin” and dedicates it to Diego
Whereas with my fingers inside of you I don’t know if I am looking
For monument or erosion
Whereas here is when I find a way to ruin the moment
Whereas you buried me
In the wrong plot, on the wrong graph, in the wrong bell of time
Whereas I don’t get to touch the yarrow laid at my tomb
There is always something left behind that is never mine
Abortion Fantasy
in The city I am most ravenous
red thread cable a throat
a poem about revision I am
cells roam unopposed
refuses to exit the uterine border
The city only wants the stranger
me with commerce
we are most dangerous
and I conjoined with notes
of biology state hood I
the stranger as
cells before revealing
The city does not want the stranger
see women’s pod see eugenics
procedures The city subsidizes
begging complicit blood plots
Genital form to offer more than
The city does not want the stranger
a carnivorous womb trap heliamphora
an invasive species of clit
the stillborn mushroom body forcing
an occasion of treason
fist fulls of
escape route this is
arable but echo
the stranger
I patrol and part
when it fills
in here the stranger
undesignated by outbreak
will scrape
a strain of
our conspiracy
see sister sterilization
board election or elective
I come and go
between sore
reproduction
I want
I want
I want
out
Zaina Alsous is a daughter of the Palestinian diaspora and an abolitionist. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in The Offing, decomP, The Margins, Radius, Glass, Best New Poets 2017, and elsewhere. Currently she is an MFA candidate at the University of Miami.