Ayat al-Akhras

 

 

 

To Ayat al-Akhras, Suicide Bomber

 

Perfect

like your beautiful feet fitted their doll-like, clasp shoes

Perfect

like a circle

or the eternal fingering breezes on trees

was your act

in the split second when nothing and everything mattered,

when all your beauty and sorrow and anger and incomprehension

burst into scalpels of sun to carve stunning radiance

through the dark Palestinian day

-- Ronald Jones

 

 

Ronald Jones is a poet who lives in Camarillo, CA.

Ed. Note: In our printed issue, there was an error on the 8th line of the above poem. The first word of line 8 was printed as "which" instead of "when." The correct version is posted here. We apologize to the author for the error. If you have a printed copy of Left Curve no. 27, please make a note of the change. The poem appears on p. 37.