ustxtxb_obs_2004_04_23_50_00021-00000_000.pdf

POETRY NOT ME IN NABLUS I wasn’t the boy shot through the hand as he walked along Sal-hedin street idly brushing his fingers against the concrete market stalls his hand, not mine would sometimes throw rocks at the Israeli tanks smoking up the streets near the school, nor was I the girl with the scraped knees and circular rubber bullet bruises, cornered by a jeep as she returned home, and how could I be my uncle hung by his feet in Ariel until blood bloated and blushed his head, although he still walks with a limp, I can run for miles nor am the blasted body of a mother cut in half by her bedroom dopr as soldiers triggered a shaped charge the differences are obvious my hands are whole and I use them to make Italian pastry chefs British pensioners, and French jugglers laugh at my pantomime of soldiers hiding in tanks shooting at my friends with shirts on their heads 100 feet away, an Israeli sniper runs his laser across someone’s chest it is not my heart and lungs blasted away by a tumbling 25 caliber shell it is not my blood running out my mouth and it is not my smile stuck to my face like a paper donkey’s tail, I am still telling this story which is never a problem, you have to agree for an insightful and more to the point, living narrator who lets you believe death is for someone else, in some other place. SHAHEED his picture was pasted to the living room wall the mother smiled with her daughter on the couch Omar ate pita and chicken with Zatar I stared at the 50 caliber machine gun holes the mother smiled with her daughter on the couch the Merkava tank gunned its engines, spewing smoke I stared at the 50 caliber machine gun holes Omar said his brother was too young to blow up the Merkava tank gunned its engines, spewing smoke a parakeet twittered by the kitchen door Omar said his brother was too young to blow up the mother was crying as her daughter sang a parakeet twittered by the kitchen door soldiers were coming up the stairs the mother was crying as her daughter sang they were young, about the same age soldiers were coming up the stairs a Tom and Jerry cartoon was going manic on TV they were young, about the same age we all watched the mouse smash the cat with a nailed club his picture was pasted to the living room wall Robert Lipton ROBERT LIPTON works as an epidemiologist in California. He was the L.A. director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting during the first Gulf War, spent five weeks in the Middle East with the International Solidarity Movement in 2002, and is also a member of Jewish Voice for Peace \(www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org poems. Naomi Shihab Nye 4/23/04 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21