Still Hope

Still Hope

Every morning
I check my phone,
for news from Qaa-Al-Qurain,
just outside of Khan Younis,
because while I slept,
Mahmoud has tried to buy flour,
or diapers for his disabled brother,
or new clothes for his little sister
who had had none in 18 months,
or blankets,
or today, firewood,
at $50 a cord,
in order to bake the flour into bread.

Every trip to the shrinking market,
“black” in more ways than one,
means taking his life in his hands,
but really, that’s the case
virtually anywhere in Gaza,
at every moment;
waiting in line at a soup kitchen,
going to the hospital,
talking to a neighbor,
or just sitting inside your tent, trying to decide
if not letting your children outside to play
is like killing them in another way.