Who would have witnessed that night say
the last screaming breath of the sea was a woman
raped in her mouth sullied to the size of an open field,
starving the prickly pear struck down by gunshots.
Each second bore the tethered contusions of the Indigenous,
the dark blaze riddling in amber gold through
the tender heads of hunted children whose laughter
swallowed the luminous daze of a mosque window.
No one could claim life among this gory debris
where souls still beg for water in the frayed cinereal
of its memory wailing to hold a roof. What remains
is the steadfast glare of epitaphs stilting
the murderer’s holiday pleasure
pushing out as fresh sandcastles by the beach.
Note: Tantura was once a quiet fishing village close to the city of Haifa in Palestine. On the
night of May 1948, a gruesome massacre was committed against the indigenous people of
Tantura by the Israeli soldiers belonging to the Alexandroni Brigade of the IDF. The village no
longer exists and has been turned into an Israeli beach resort.
