In a map of the HeavensI found your house
as it was before the genocide
a green table some olives ina red bowl
books leaning this way and that
your wife writing nearby
Well before your children whose voices played around us grew silent
and were erased from the text of their future
If I could get there onmy own
would you two still be alive to welcome mein the rubble of yourmemory
as a fellow poet
deserving your griefand anger
as a stranger who meantyou no harmbut allowed others to killyour prayers in plain sightof my life in words
Perhaps my friendsforgive meone day out of many
Beau Beausoleil is a poet and activist based in San Francisco, California. His most recent chapbook is called War News (daily poems responding to the first three months of the genocidal war in Gaza), which appeared as a free online ebook published by Agitate! Journal. Forthcoming is a second volume in the War News series, War News II (11/9/23 - 6/3/24), to be published momentarily by fmsbw press in San Francisco.
