Fargo Tbakhi
after Milton / for and with George
my last obedience to the restraints Of the language Of bone breakers,
to the tyranny inside the gloved hand, inside Of, I dissolve it now,
I offer it to you slaughtered like a purveyor Of tear gas, gutted like
a sustainer Of museums, I beg you now, who from the last
will be present, anchoring my every tooth, planted in a garden
fertilized by the ashes Of Qalandia, rend my body, bring life to Arabs,
bring water to wash my body Of blood, I will be wrath Of,
song Of, blade and flame Of, tooth and nail Of, I will entomb
the remnants Of a board Of directors inside my own heart,
your hands forgiving the debts Of rule, translating the missives
Of scorpions, the homilies Of Molotovs, breathing the dessications
Of security cameras, you crater Of tongue, you loveliness in retribution,
tributary Of unpriced goods, Of fire and ice, Of a program to liberate,
Of the drowning of conquerors, Of an endless intifada, you singer Of
a stone to the skull Of a soldier, here I beg you with libations Of tanks,
with offerings Of hair, Of loss, Of the suit Of a banker, Of boots pried
from the feet which carried a corpse to its nest at Qalandia, I give you
my fears and my hesitancies, to cast into the depths, to unlanguage, I beg you,
lower me my heart the hewn signature Of a stonemason,
bring me low, unmake me roughly silica dust outlining my shape
like an angel silent in the poisoned air, steady my rifle
aimed toward the killing Of treeplanters, the righting Of sins,
the breathing Of earth, the dreaming Of children, Of this, Of more,
sing, empty the earth Of song to pour into my ventricled weapon,
what is low in me make sharp, what is hurt in me make sharper,
you made with earth and a million stomping feet, and what is light in me,
and what in me is light?
Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian-American performance artist and writer. He is the winner of the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and a Taurus. His writing appears in Foglifter, Mizna, Peach Mag, Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, The Shallow Ends, Prolit, and select bags of Nomadic Grounds Coffee.
