Day 209

The brothers go from Rafah to Khan Younis
to find their house.  It was the most beautiful city
in the world, their sister is saying.  They go
to the street where their house had been, but there is
no house, no street, nothing.  The brothers search among stones.
Everything is stone, and under every stone
more stones.  How is it that our lives
are reduced to stones?  Our books, our musical instruments —
how have they turned to stone?  Are the children
who played on this street also stone?  And we
who are moving, breathing, searching — do we not know
that we too might become stones leaning on stones?