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.