MUSEUMS

Time is the greatest gift
one can ever offer, because it is
the only thing we cannot

take back. It is the same
reason I will not go
to war for a country

I cannot belong to.
I cannot be well-
versed in fast enough to

beckon the tongue to give.
& give lip— all split
and dry with new

breath in the morning. 
All I can offer
the land of my parents

is the promise

that its proper name will not be lost
on me. The curse of the diaspora is to
become a scholar: 
                    an urn for all
the instances their hands
were too small
for anything less
                    than ash.

Is there a word for it? That
sensation of inner lung
being coated by the dust

of another man’s wake. 
I might as well read:
palestine, phulisteen,
a severed realm

of artifacts, a museum
filled with too much
                         echo.

This poem first appeared in Voicemail Poems on April 8th, 2016. To view the poem as it originally appeared, visit the publication here.

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NEW RULE

*reference: dark like dirt but not like dirt

          when
          you are going to kill
          a person, you must first
          ^[black/brown]*         learn our names,
look us     in the eyes            & say them aloud.
                                  no more
                                  learning
our names after

                                  we're dead

This poem first appeared in The Offing Literary Magazine on May 20th, 2015. To view the poem as it originally appeared, visit the publication here.

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