a boy in a Palestine cell
can't tell you his lover
serenades him like a constellation of stars
does to the night.
a mother in Gaza
can't tell you flowers are beautiful accessories
say, in Gaza,
flowers are weeds caressing gravestones.
a boy's head is glided into earth
and he saw his first twilight in Nigeria
you don't tell him not to expect the pitter-patter of bullets on his mother's rooftops,
you don't tell him peace is a state
but a name—
a metaphor for how we name ourselves what we don't own
i don't knife patriotism
but no matter how you write this home into an aureole
a burnt city is still your destination.
