by Catherine Gonick
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| Pro-Palestinian protesters gather in front of Sproul Hall during a planned protest at UC Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday, April 22, 2024. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group) |
A goddess of silence carries
my severed right arm
my Zionist
arm they call
genocidal among
many other names.
Silently moving
out of sight
through camps
where the righteous
sing from tents
it waves goodbye.
I hear
the blood of words dry
feel the pain
of my phantom limb.
Catherine Gonick's alma mater is U.C. Berkeley. She has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate.