How Can You?

~ i’d like to ask ~

Screenshot from social media of life in Gaza, November 2023, photographer unknown

to fellow-poet subail’s poem

‘oh! Gaza how do you sleep!’

i replied —

so I’d like to ask,

oh israel, how can you sleep

how can you dream oh israel,

play and frolic in gentle blue pools

how can you watch babies stretched like laundry and not cry

how can you breathe lush avenues

how can you hold plush teddy bears

gobble veal and roast chicken

Smell sweet crushed grass

smack on red lipstick and kiss a lover

eat forbidden crustaceans

on snowy white linen

how can you not say stop

oh israel, oh chosen ones

and still hope for salvation?

Farida Haque

i write i paint i dream, i weep

and so i am