Piled Limestone
I.
the single leaf’d blade of grass seeding in the face of piled limestone tears itself tall, from darkness rising
the screams of a plastic bag half-pinned in a heap of trash
violently, tirelessly thrashing
the demand of a machine gun’d soldier’s hand reaching outward upright and flat, imposing
the jagged stone’s pitch plots its trajectory
dripping, spilling over children’s fists
the road in random asphalt chunks bids no passage by its destructive wake barricading bodies, stranding us in…
II.
the lone olive tree’d hill rooted in hot loose sand
stands in offense to the wind, sweating
the rubber tire’s burning inferno rolls flame, end over end
reflecting stars, for moon’s past reaching
the echoed whimpers of children martyred, walking souls
memories suspended, voices muting
the shrouded bodies stack, piling up, spilling over
the wall grows organic as trees with stone roots and barbed-wire tops barricading bodies, stranding us in…
III.
the office window’s glare forces eyes to squint
as saddened silence ladens a tongue’s unscreaming, my heart’s deafening lament
the smile’s forced faining fabrication poisons normality
not unseeing, unhearing, nor uncrying
a witness to piled limestone, fragments obstructing
am I here…am I there…
diasporic dissidence imploding, stranding me in…
About the Poet
Micaela Kaibni Raen is a Palestinian American creator, cultural worker, queer femme, mother, and global Queer/Trans rights activist. She grew up in the Little Arabia community in California and graduated from Chapman University. During that time, she participated in the Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc., ACT UP!, and Queer Nation. She is most known for Queer Tatreez, a style of visual art and poetics based on Indigenous Palestinian Tatreez embroidery. Her work appears in Bint el Nas; Mizna; Qafiyah Review; Yellow Medicine Review; The Poetry of Arab Women; and El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Arab and Arabophone Anthology.