Alison Stone

Too Real

In myths, the would-be prey escapes
by changing into tree or bird.

The audience at the Israeli music festival
was trapped in their human skin.

A pair of lovers
mutilated embracing,

one teen stabbed
with song still in her throat.

The stars blink on
with no new constellations.

No exquisite flower
rises from their blood.

Trying To Think About Anything Other Than Israel and Gaza

Like my dessert of pomegranate seeds.
That’s dessert, not desert, and the seeds are
a bright purple-red, not at all
the same shade as blood. What my cousin
told me they did to the pregnant woman
is poking at the outside of awareness.
So are survivors holding children in bombed Gaza streets.
I try to push the images out, to bar
my heart’s door, and no, not like 
the kibbutzniks barricading their dwellings.
The noises that I can’t not hear aren’t threats
and curses in a foreign tongue
but rather the grief of families, translated
into English before I shut off the screen.
What good is my five-thousand-miles-away
lament? I can focus instead on the sky’s soft,
not nursery-blue, and no, these kites
do not resemble paragliders. My cat’s meow 
for dinner isn’t rising like a siren.
Just let me open the can and after 
he licks the bowl clean, I can hold
his warm and breathing body in my arms
and if the purring isn’t loud enough,
turn up Mozart or The Ramones
to blot out echoes of my client wondering
Will everyone fly flags?
Which flag?

©2023 Alison Stone