“Take some kittens,
some tender little moggies in a box,”
said Jamal, a surgeon at Al Shifa,
Gaza’s main hospital.
The nurse holds a blood-stained cardboard box
“Seal up the box, then jump on it
with all your weight and might, until
you feel their little bones crunching,
until you hear the last muffled little mew.”
“Try to imagine what would happen
if we do this, and the images were circulated.
Hear the righteous outrage of public opinion,
the complaints of the animal rights organisations…”
He continues, looking at the box.
“Israel trapped hundreds of civilians
inside a school as if in a box,
including many children,
crushed them with all the might of its bombs.”
“The world barely reacted we would
have been better off to be cats rather than
Palestinians; we would be more protected.”
He opens the box.
Inside are amputated limbs,
legs and arms, some from the knee down,
others with the entire femur attached,
amputated from the injured of
Al Fakhura school in Jabalia.
****************
A poem that paraphrases a true report from Gaza. January, 2009
