Shaheed شهيد A poem by Adriana Oniță

Shaheed شهيد

      "As you prepare your breakfast, think of others."

      — Mahmoud Darwish

Today, I learned a new word.

شهيد Shaheed. Witness.

One letter separates martor from martir.

One who knows / One who knows the truth.

* *

Reem—a cerulean laugh when your grandfather Khaled 

tosses you into the air.

Hind—two pigtails, braided with almond blossoms.

A high-pitched voice on the phone: come and get me, please come.

* *

Israel kills five children in Gaza every hour.

You tell me: This line isn't necessary.

A poem should be a refuge.

* *

A refuge should be a crooked olive tree.

A blossoming tangerine tree

in whose shade two girls play together.

Not the refugee camp

where an Israeli bomb killed you, Reem,

while you slept with your brother Tarek

in your mother's long arms,

the same night you pleaded

with your grandfather to find you a tangerine.

Not the car you escaped in, Hind,

with your uncle, aunt, and cousins,

the car you were trapped in

surrounded by your dead relatives,

the car where your tiny body was found

12 days after your desperate calls for help,

just a few steps from the ambulance

sent to save you.

* *

You say: Focus on Rafael, your son.

Think of your own family.

Me: Israel has killed 12,660 children in 134 days.

If you attended one funeral each day

for every child killed in Gaza,

you would write an elegy every day for 27 years.

* *

Reem, I drew you from memory.

Your grandfather was trying to open your eyes.

She is the soul of my soul,

he said, kissing your dusty eyelids.

On a beach, five kilometers of children's clothes:

each garment, a child killed in Gaza

with American,

German,

British,

Canadian,

French,

Romanian

weapons exported to Israel.

None of that belongs in a poem, I know.

* *

Reem, your grandfather found you a tangerine.

Rafael is keeping it safe for you, at breakfast.

Return to Journal

Adriana Oniță is a poet, artist, educator, translator, publisher, and researcher with a PhD in language education. She writes and teaches in English, Romanian, Spanish, French, and Italian. Her multilingual poems have appeared in CBC Books, The Globe and Mail, The Ex-Puritan, Tint Journal, Canthius, The Humber Literary Review, periodicities, the Romanian Women Voices in North America series, and in her chapbooks: Misremembered Proverbs (above/ground press, 2023) and Conjugated Light (Glass Buffalo, 2019). As founding editor of The Polyglot, Adriana is proud to have published more than 220 writers and artists working in over 60 languages. She works as editorial director for the Griffin Poetry Prize and lives between Edmonton and Sicily.

WordCity Literary Journal is provided free to readers from all around the world, and there is no cost to writers submitting their work. Substantial time and expertise goes into each issue, and if you would like to contribute to those efforts, and the costs associated with maintaining this site, we thank you for your support.