South of Hebron
Across the onion fields, a hulk of rusted metal groans,
as out of place, it seems to the boy whose father tills
the land, as an orange blossom unfurling in a smokestack,
but there it is regardless, its turret swiveling like a broken
carousel, leaving a streak of flattened stalks in its wake.
The boy lives here. Picks his way probingly around traces
of mines to hear his language spoken in collapsible stalls
of the village market’s measly remains. He has nothing
to hurl in his house, has to scour bulldozed quarries
for fist-sized rocks that slice heavily through the air,
meeting stray man or metal with satisfying thwack.
How small the rock is compared to the singular burden
of being made unwanted in a land you were born in,
for perpetuity, for no reason you will ever understand.
Two Sentences
1.
Yes, the Sumerians used asphalt
to inlay mosaics in temple floors,
Mesopotamians lined water canals,
hulls of boats with bitumen,
Egyptians greased their chariots,
embalmed mummies with pitch,
but no Empire has eaten oil
the way America does, rapaciously,
without regard for where it comes
from or what impact its extraction
has on lives, on the environment,
no, it’s about the bottom line here,
about the tankers emblazoned
with corporate logos, smashing
reefs to alter irrevocably migration
patterns of cormorants, of citizens.
2.
When Democracy arrives, you best
click your heels, stand at attention,
for soon you will have more channels
than the Euphrates, gangsta rap,
liposuction, your women will flip
their hijabs when they see salon
sensibility in recyclable bottles,
genuflections and prostrations
will be jettisoned for the bump
and grind, and though the muezzin
might be out of a job, happy hour
happens every day when sun sets
in gray hills unblemished by bombs,
which, of course, would be dropped
only if you were to refuse opening
your arms when Democracy arrives.
“South of Hebron” first appeared in Mississippi Review, Vol. 32, No. 1/2 (Spring, 2004)