Birdwoman over Gaza
my four-letter word, a zig and a zag
and you’re there and no more lag time
for the apache or drone my sine and
cosine peninsula my mantra my nakba
my real-time palimpsest of human misery
my tonight we’ll go behind the scenes
of my mass grave hospital livestreaming
in a theater of war near you my tent city
in my occupied territory in my bottle of
shampoo in my stray piece of shrapnel
in my food aid package from the sky that
kills me at the checkpoint at the border
of my international food court of justice
in the mirror with my sniper taking aim
at my children’s children in my future
where i get my cnn my msnbc my fox
and my aipac on the pursed lips of my
elected officials in my standing ovations
in my electric chair with please clap in
the teleprompters of my future dictators
in my temporary ceasefire and extended
curfew in the overton window of micro-
humanity my few good men lighting my
point-to-point date with destiny with a
thousand points of light my search engine
autocorrecting my system preferences for
all eternity where my one-day-old baby
boy meets my 97-year-old man in an all-
ages heaven just a hop skip and a jump across
my rainbow bridge with the celestial keening
of my animal ancestors in my pricked-up ears
where I can hear my ocean over the horizon
with the latchkey to my homeland clutched
in a tender paw not my own not my own
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Kevin Carollo is author of the memoir SHRED!: Running and Being (North Dakota State University Press, 2024) and a chapbook of poems about early onset dementia, Elizabeth Gregory (Rain Taxi/OHM Editions, 2018). He writes, runs, and rocks for peace and justice in Fargo, ND.
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Thomas Riesner is an artist from Leipzig, Germany.
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