kh like khummus

"kh like khummus" by Bazeed is the winner of the 2023 Resistance & Resilience Prize

First they send in the girl soldiers.

They look better
not the soldiers themselves, I mean
no, no; the optics-
than sending even a tiny battalion of boy soldiers
to peel the old woman
off her son's grave.

Ruth Eglash, writing for the Washington Post
Has an article on the rise in the Israeli army
of voluntary orthodox girl recruits:

"Within a few weeks of starting their military service,
many Israeli women head to a tailor

to have their oversize uniforms altered
to be more form-fitting [...and] fashionable."

Army cum gender equality cum runway.

 

If you hover over her name,
Ruth Eglash, a helpful little box comes up.
It tells you Ruth is a

"reporter covering [for] Israel
and the Palestinian Territories." In
other words, colonialism's her beat.

Cuz that's part of how you steal a country, dontcha know,
right from under its indigenous inhabitants' feet:
Proper nouns turned adjective-
Israel as "Israel" is a nation-state,
Palestine, as "territories", pile
of black caviar on a plate,
ready for eating.

Have you ever been to territories
in the summer?                          I hear it's lovely
                            this time of year!

Keep up with that kind of thing,
and you'd very likely stand to win
the very khummus out of the bowl
with its traditional blue & white [star of flowers]
motif.

 

¹ this poem is in response to this video, showing a Palestinian mother attempting to halt the demolition of her son's grave in Al Yusufiyah cemetery in occupied East Jerusalem, to make way for an Israeli theme park planned in its place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N jGFb3Yyv0