by Jeremy Nathan Marks
in memory of Wadea Al-Fayoume (6 years old)
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The last words of a six-year-old US Muslim boy stabbed to death in a suspected hate crime over the weekend were "Mom, I'm fine", his uncle said as hundreds gathered to lay the child to rest… Police say Wadea al-Fayoume was attacked because he was Muslim. His funeral was held as the family's landlord appeared in court charged with the boy's murder. The 71-year-old accused was allegedly upset about the Israel-Hamas war. —BBC, October 16, 3023 |
Six-year-old sons are supposed to live the dream of a free-range American boyhood.
Cowboys and Indians. Minecraft and mumps inoculations. Even gender-neutral pronouns.
Muslim or Christian, it shouldn’t matter since we, the people, possess a constitution
once amended to address that there is no sin in being subaltern.
But our land is filled with weapons. Frontier remnants, perhaps. Anger makes fathers
guard their daughters with rifles. We should never ignore that faith is a live wire.
What about knives. A mother discovers how a landlord’s grandfatherly fondness for her son
turns to murder. He raises his blade to the boy twenty-six times, practically a lunar cycle.
How did a man who carpentered nails and boards to build young Wadea a house
decide to enlist in sorrow’s circle. Was it Iblis or X. OAN perhaps. Maybe Fox.
Did he go mad from the whisper of his neighbor’s dog
(like Berkowitz)
who said never trust anyone who abstains from swine.
I believe property is a theft. Claim a land, claim a life.
Now our nation reckons with a terrible debt.
Who but a martyred boy can account for that.
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. His latest book is Flint River (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). New and recent work appears/will appear in Mobius, Rattle, Terrain.org, Writers Resist, Topical Poetry, and Belt Magazine. He holds two passports.