Tariq Luthun

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WE ALREADY KNOW THIS

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There is more to us than

What was taken from us.

A place to call

home. Land of olive trees,

and their branches.

Palestine. There.

I’ve said it. I want to be sure

that everyone knows

from where my parents

hail. Everyone needs a place

to call home. Genocide: everyone,

I would hope, knows that it did not start

and did not end with the

Holocaust. I haven’t forgotten that

everyone needs a place on this planet. And I,

I prefer to live where I can leave

the doors unlocked —

or live without the doors —

or hell. I don’t even care

for walls. But, I do care

for the blues: water; the sadness

that comes when it is not within

sight. I don’t know if there is

a child, anywhere on this earth, that wasn’t,

at least once, held by their mother. Again,

water: where my mother held me

until I was given to land. O firm land — how my father holds

me — folks keep calling for blood, to dress you in it.

I don’t think any of them

know, truly, how much of it

the body can take; how much of it

the body can lose.