This is the first in our Palestinian Voices series, featuring work by Palestinian writers and artists, including people who are part of the Palestinian diaspora.
The dignified broadcaster on TV smiled. “The boy’s mouth is now a restricted military zone,” he announced.
(Palestinian Voices/ Translations)
I wish I’d thought to shove my friend L. off his drum throne, sit in his place, and try my hand at the kit. But in my defense, this was high school in the 1970s, when teenaged girls didn’t play drums.
(nonfiction)
Inside the mountain of smoke were orange, flickering circles like tornado funnels. And they were bearing south at what was clearly a tremendous speed. This was the Palisades Fire, the worst urban firestorm in a century.
(nonfiction)
Man’s resentment at her for being torn in half, forced to share his Maker’s image but not enough to spare. He wept petitions in the lap of Tigris and Euphrates, “Please, please!” he moaned, “She’s too singular to be understood!”
(poetry)
My mother insisted
til the day she died
that I was born at a very early age
I still don’t know if I believe that
(poetry)
I wasn’t blameless. I’d slammed doors, I’d yelled. One time, I threw a plate against the wall and it shattered. But when someone hits you, you leave. That’s what you do, even if no one else loves you but your cat.
(fiction)
The song might be the length it took for a historic city to be destroyed (twenty-two minutes) one February evening.
Who collects the snow globes of war and of fathers?
A collection of snow globes, each says “it is snowing.”
(poetry)
if the Earth would just split in two
& one half would take its leave
I’d take a seat on the other half
& absorb the blue skies above
(translations/poetry)
Part of our series of pieces inspired by the Democratic Party’s 2024 platform.
Children cough, wheeze, inhale the gas, and rub burning eyes in the capital city through January. Inhalers are in demand. The government talks about creating artificial rain to clear up the sky.
(nonfiction)
Farmwork required
strong hands and body
not the somersaults
of ABCs in the mind.
(No Place is Foreign)
