“What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?”
–Czeslaw Milosz, “Dedication,” Warsaw, 1945

when i go to write i only see
the bodies in what were tents
the bodies in aid trucks the bodies

in what were roads but now
is bombed out desert i only hear
the lies we all hear about mistakes and

investigations and my boss’s boss’s boss
who doesn’t believe in divestment
as a strategy and what they did to us

on that grass and in that jail and in
that courtroom and then back
in our offices i see the swollen

bruises on my hands from zipties and the smell
of capsaicin carves a home in my nostrils
weeks after i only see my husband on the ground buried

under many white men with guns and shields
and knees i see the footage but i cannot write
from my own heart poems about the grief

of the parents who hold pieces
of what used to be their children.