I never knew death

until I saw the bombing

of a refugee camp

craters

filled with

dismembered legs

and splattered torsos

but no sign of a face

I never understood pain

until a seven-year-old girl

clutched my hand

stared up at me

with soft brown eyes

waiting for answers

I didn’t have any

I had muted breath

and dry pens in my back pocket

that couldn’t fill pages

of understanding or resolution

in her other hand

she held a key

to her grandmother’s house

but I couldn’t unlock the cell

that caged her older brothers

they said:

we slingshot dreams

so the other side

will feel our father’s presence!

a craftsman

built homes in areas

where no one was building

when he fell

silence

a .50 caliber bullet

tore through his neck

shredding his vocal cords

too close to the wall

his hammer

must have been a weapon

he must have been a weapon

encroaching on settlement hills

and demographics

so his daughter

studies mathematics

seven explosions

times

eight bodies

equals

four congressional resolutions

seven Apache helicopters

times

eight Palestinian villages

equals

silence and a second Nakba

our birthrate

minus

their birthrate

equals

one sea and 400 villages re-erected

one state

plus

two peoples

…and she can’t stop crying

never knew revolution

or the proper equation

tears at the paper

with her fingertips

searching for answers

but only has teachers

looks up to the sky

to see Stars of David

demolishing squalor

with Hellfire missiles

she thinks back

words and memories

of his last hug

before he turned and fell

now she pumps

dirty water from wells

while settlements

divide and conquer

and her father’s killer

sits beachfront

with European vernacular

this is our land!, she said

she’s seven years old

this is our land!

she doesn’t need history books

or a schoolroom teacher

she has these walls

this sky

her refugee camp

she doesn’t know the proper equation

but she sees my dry pens

no longer waiting for my answers

just holding her grandmother’s key

searching

for ink