Ramadan (Guests)
Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights We do home-stays here Like many before us And some will continue after we leave Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home On the…
Category: Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine
Dedication Page (Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine)
For Lubna Alam, Zeina Kiblawi, Layla Lavasani, and Anjali Oza Who sparked the beginning And for Magan Wiles Who saw it through to the end
Compromismo
Until one is committed There is hesitancy The chance to draw back Always ineffectiveness Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) There is one elementary truth The ignorance of which Kills countless ideas and splendid…
A Day’s Work (Checkpoint [Life under Occupation])
I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face I’d never punched anyone that way He collapsed on the road The officers said that we had to search him for his papers…
Fullness and Emptiness/2
Before Carla’s presentation at the Peace Center Henry reminisced with me as we both ate tabouli and fries pitas “The first time I went to Guatemala I was there for a couple of weeks When…
I Should Have Read This before Finishing “Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine”
“There’s just one request I have, Pan: please don’t stick me in any of your books. And if that’s too much to ask, do me a favor and at least leave my name out.” —…
Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine: Table of Contents
Part One Instant Message (4:32 a.m.) Part Two Cover Letter Part Three Roads/1 Modus Operandi/1 Invitation/1 Invitation/2 Lexicon/1 Being Present/1 What Some People Say/1 A Cup of Tea/1 (Fullness and Emptiness/1) Lexicon/2 A Little Taste/1
Comfort the Afflicted, Afflict the Comfortable
At this stage, we have an obligation to make those who shield Israel from criticism feel uncomfortable—not because they are Jewish, but because they are complicit in the commission of crimes against a vulnerable people…
Accompaniment
Dear Layla We are staying with the Hijazzi family these nights We arrive in time to break the fast in the evening Spend the evening then sleep over Leave around 7 in the morning Yesterday…
Corporate Citizen/2 (Products/3)
Dear Carla What’s it to the CEOs of the corporations happily ensconced in the Military-Industrial Complex If their “products” are used to burn flesh To burn it to a crisp Specifically 34 year-old father flesh…