share


You Arrive at A White Checkpoint and Emerge Unscathed

after Mahmoud Darwish 

 

Why is a boy an exclamation, 

and why are his dead a period?, 

why do his sinews tighten when he sees 

a Palestinian body? Does his vision narrow 

because of their flight, 

or because their world is raining with salt? 

Why is a boy with a gun different 

from a boy with a jail cell?, 

if the tools of rupture are our arms for 

repurposing the body, and the arms of 

the state are our means of repurposing the male, 

are we finally useful and breathing and nervous…? 

Does the white mean Night’s arrival?, 

or does night signal the white’s escape?, 

and when that white city boy becomes 

a White City man, 

does the hate in his heart subside?, 

or does it become an ellipses, 

a Bauhaus history of stories started 

and left unfinished 


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

has written about art, film, and literature for the New York Review of Books, The Nation, and Artforum, among others.



READ NEXT

fiction

January 2014

Textile

Orly Castel-Bloom

TR. Dalya Bilu

fiction

January 2014

It was not only avoiding thoughts of home that helped the good sniper to carry out his mission as...

poetry

June 2014

Death on Rua Augusta

Tedi López Mills

TR. David Shook

poetry

June 2014

Translator’s Note Death on Rua Augusta is a book I knew I would translate before I had even finished...

Interview

January 2017

Interview with David Thomson

Leo Robson

Interview

January 2017

David Thomson — the author of dozens of books, including an account of Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic and...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required