Counting backwards. Day 318 of a war.
Yesterday the yard flooded,
an email hollered at me-
“317 days of slaughter”.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 303 of a war.
Ishaq starved to death. His motorcycle
remained under the rubble,
he loved it. The motorcycle. He didn’t holler.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 300 of a war.
West of the city, carrying food on his
bike, Khaled rode too close
to the missile. Burial site unknown.
I apologized.
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Counting backwards. Day 36 of a war.
I am at a conference. Unseasonably warm.
I brought the wrong clothes. Elham
dropped the embroidered bag when
a sniper’s bullet reached her.
I apologized.
Counting backwards. Day 13 of a war.
In a poem Hiba wrote “We are not just
transients passing”. Her poems rippled
through the world, she was killed.
At home. An airstrike.
I apologized.
In a beginning. Day 1 of this war.
Clear sky, a small pond,
a gentle fall in SC. Horror
surges afar. No flutter in this pond.
I call home—
I don't apologize.
Michal Rubin is an Israeli, living in Columbia, SC. The impetus for her writing came from the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a psychotherapist, a Cantor and a poet, she brings forth the challenge of distinguishing truths from myths, awareness vs. denial, conformity vs. individuation. Her work was published in Psychotic Education, The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal, Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry, Fall-Lines, The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal, South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023, Palestine-Israel Journal, Critical Muslim, and a chapbook published by Cathexis Northwest Press.
