You call a rose beautiful,
But vilify its thorns like you do Palestinian men
You call daisies weeds and pluck each petal
saying,
He loves me, he loves me not
Each daisy a Palestinian child at its yellow core,
Like an umbilical cord
Each petal a mother– but not white
Translucent at best like the clouds
Prettier the farther they are
From where you walk–you, the chosen ones–
God loves only us
But roses are red with the blood of our martyred men
Romantic like Darwish
And if you called a daisy’s petals white you’d have to water it as you do flowers
Or bury it like you do seeds
Because only white flowers are native
So you pluck them instead
Saying,
He wants peace, he wants it not
You mow the lawn every few years–
2008, 2009
-12
-14
-21
-22
It’s 2023 Gaza is still green,
All these weeds,
Why can’t the Palestinian just die?
Do you love her to death?
You ask the Palestinian man
As you pluck his daughter from her mother’s arms
He loves her, he loves her not
20,000 tonnage of bombs should be enough to deflower a nation
Gaza’s thorns are the most beautiful
Thicker than concrete shards
Bleed the colonizer’s finger when he tries
To pluck our children from the their mother’s womb
Only God loves us
A boy bright like the sun, a daughter as beautiful as the moon
You’re alive, and beautiful as the moon
The father thorn tells his blossoming weeds
And punctures through Israeli tanks
Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life
says the Palestinian thorn
As you skin him from his stem
and pluck a million daisies until the earth is inside out
And bury them in a blood of roses
Saying,
I want peace, he wants it not
God chose us, God chose him not
Hadeel Salameh earned her MFA in Fiction at Bowling Green State University. Her work has appeared in The Rising Phoenix Review, Wrath Bearing Tree, Jerusalem Quarterly, Torrid Literary Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Apogee, Anchor Still Harbor, Muftah, SLAB Literary Art & Sound Book, and as honorable mentions to the Ibrahim Dakkak Awards and the MLK Jr. Day Writing Awards.
