Moonlight

On the radio, Amer Shurrab

tells how his father and two brothers

were stopped in Gaza by Israeli soldiers.

Both brothers shot.

One dead on one side of the car.

One bleeding to death on the other.

Twenty hours lying in his father’s arms

while the soldiers wouldn’t let a medic through.

Maybe there shouldn’t have been moonlight

shining on this man as he crawled

behind the car, driving off the feral cats

that stalked his son’s body.

Maybe this is no place for the persistence

of the physical world. The moon

waxes full, glazing the crown

of the father’s head, the planes and angles

of his sons’ faces. Its reflection

strewn across the dark pools.