Poem: The Promised Land
Each side, wholly convinced of its birthright and
More importantly
The illegitimacy of its foe
Has found a reason to live.
Now Kasseem and Michael, Abdul and Eli, and all their friends and neighbors know why it is they arise
In the morning.
There is sacred land to be defended, no matter how denuded and barren it has become, shorn of its fruit and robbed of a future by vengeful missiles that tear through the dirt like a pernicious plow.
The rest of the world will never understand why
This tract of desert requires bloody irrigation.
The rest of the world, busy with collecting dolls and stockpiling art, did not have a grandmother and a father and a sister
Who died
Upon this glorious promised land.