Two pages of text, split into five numbered pieces, surrounding two colorful illustrations of birds with patterns extending from their wings. The text is mostly in a black sans serif font, with occasional excerpts in gray. The title, all in lowercase, reads, “the aftermath (bracket open, it isn’t over as it ends, bracket close) of the bombs”. The bracketed aside is in gray rather than black.
The poem, numbered in pieces one through five, with arrows next to each number pointing to its respective text, are arranged so that piece one is on page one, piece two is to the right of it on the second page, piece three is back on the first page below the first piece, piece four is back on the second page below the second piece, and piece five is on the second page towards the bottom.
Graphically, on the first page are pieces of text numbered one and three, to the top and left of an illustration of a tall plains bird, a Little Bustard, in front of a patchy green background, wings flung back, feathers extended. On the second page are pieces of text numbered two, four, and five, surrounding to the left, top, right, and bottom an illustration of a Hoopoe, a smaller bird perched on a branch, wings starting to unfold. The style of the illustration is in patches of color that have been flattened and layered. The Little Bustard is a gray brown white bird, with a dark neck that sticks out at an angle, with long dark feather fingers. A striped pattern, like that representing olive leaves on a kuffiyeh, decorates the bird’s breast, and linked lines, like the pattern representing linked communities on a kuffiyeh, trail from the bird’s feathers towards the right of the image. The Hoopoe on the second page is an orange tan bird, with a tall crest of disheveled feathers dotted with cream and black atop its head. The bird’s beak is long and thin, and open, as if in call. Its tail, black with a thick white band, arrows inward, and its just unfolding wings are also striped. A similar linked lines pattern to the Bustard’s trails from its wings towards the bottom left of the image.
The poem also contains spaces to create structure. Spaces in a piece of the text will be indicated by the spatial notes after each numbered piece of the poem. Gray text within a piece will be indicated by the notes in parentheses “(gray starts)” and “(gray ends)”. The poem, in numbered order, reads,
One.
“Yearly i regret child-me’s and college-me’s difficulty learning my Father language,
Because yearly i am listening to the sound of Arabic being
screamed
whispered
raised in prayer
among the sounds of among the aftermath of the bombs and here (gray starts) in this context only (gray ends) i know i begin
to carve the same
neuropath of pain
that serves the narrative of the people
committing a genocide sinking hooks into the flesh of a people so that they can’t become unlinked
from screaming from crying and terror”
(“screamed, whispered, raised in prayer,” are arranged to cascade down the page, and the lines that follow are spaced to bounce back in the other direction. “from screaming” is spaced out apart from “from crying” which has a similar amount of space from “and terror”, leaving gaps in the final line of this section).
Two.
“a child sits among the rubble, scratching the dirt up, (gray starts) and i watch
them. (gray ends) their eyes are wide and unblinking and their face is covered in soot and dust
(bracket open) chalky white that must cake their lungs, (gray starts) i saw
something like it on the channel of an Israeli civilian making
a funny video for the internet - using makeup to mock those being killed
in her name - (gray ends) i remember this as i look at the child
scooping palmfuls
of dust while looking for the bodies
of their family - (gray starts) i hope she, Noya
Cohen, lives a long and peaceful life so that when she dies, from so
far away in time,
with a Free Palestine,
she can take her turn remembering
the heaviness of her own laughter, (gray ends) her laughter
among and after the
dropping of the bombs,
(gray starts) the dropping
of the bombs in her name (bracket close) (gray ends)
and i try
mostly to
think of
the child”
(This section sits aligned to the left side of the second page, with shorter lines as it goes down, pulling inwards and around the illustration of the Hoopoe. “and i try mostly to think of the child” is in bold.)
Three.
“(gray starts) i know it isn’t over when the
bomb drops, (gray ends) not just because they will drop more bombs
the father shouts his children’s names (gray starts) like a
compulsion or comfort (gray ends) as he pushes aside pieces of
what was the house that held them while they
sheltered away from the (gray starts) previous sites of the bombs
he hopes they are alive enough (gray ends) to hear him, to call
back
he hopes not to be given the impossible task of
having to unearth a mountain of debris to be able to
inter their bodies
(gray starts) these are his moments after the bomb (gray ends) and no
it has not ended. while every moment goes on
forever, (gray starts) there are some moments we will all exist in
endlessly (gray ends) and i am watching in horror as people
with names create forever hells
Hellraiser
even the bombs have names, histories
i am learning words for all kinds of things other than
bombs in all the languages possible
i am learning the names of birds and words for
butterflies and i am going to try
To Remember
as much as possible”
(The last portion of this section trails to the bottom of the page in pairs of lines, rather than the chunks in the higher up portion. “as much as possible” is in bold.)
Four.
“to memorize the qur’an makes you a hafidth,
(gray starts) a real boy’s title i desperately wanted, (gray ends)
to be hafidth meant to memorize 30 chapters of
archaic poetry, the Prophet’s (S) miracle,
our main legacy,
our being the body of people i was taught to belong
to, the Ummah that i grew to realize meant for me,
every single person on earth,
a weight in all senses, secure and heavy
i was always taught that hafidth, to complete that
task, meant not only to know and remember all the
words but by so completely understanding,
protect and preserve them
i am no hafidth, (gray starts) no longer even a Muslim in practice,
not since i stopped believing in hell after death (gray ends)
and started believing in the hells on earth
but everything i’ve been taught lives in me and can’t
stop cropping up, a perpetual harvest
Israeli soldiers murder men and women and
children and my queer siblings pinkwashed beneath
their guns, undoing centuries of embroidered family
cloth”
(This section is aligned to the right of the page and scoops around the illustrated branch on which the Hoopoe perches. Like the end of the last, this portion starts with a pair of lines, then three together, then four together, then four, then three, then two, then four, with the last line being just the word “cloth” on its own.)
Five.
“And my veins sprout olive groves, with leaves that tell stories of the colonial French prison
that gave my father his first memories (gray starts) (bracket open) condemning my own (bracket close), (gray ends) sharing that same grooved bark - the bombs for now may never stop not even after they stop - (gray starts) at age seven, the idea of memorizing the whole qur’an felt like an overwhelmingly achievable impossible task. (gray ends) i read the list of names lost and the crop of everything taught pushes forward and all i want is the same for them. this overwhelmingly achievable impossible task of memorizing and understanding so completely each knowable name and if only i could do this achievable task then
they would be protected to live in the moment of the bombs is to know your only need
is the return of what was taken, a need unfillable i sit in that need
(gray starts) so the moment of the bombs goes on (gray ends)”
(The top of this section is in a paragraph aligned to both left and right but with intentional spaces carved out, first in the first two lines to make space for the bottom of the illustrated Hoopoe perch, and then to the right, to mirror that space in the same first two lines. Then, “they would be protected” is spaced out from the left and right to stand alone, mirrored by “i sit in that need”, spaced out at the end of its line. The final phrases start with “so the moment”, which is broken up by space to the left and right, followed by “of the bombs” with space to the left and right, ending with “goes on”, with space to the left and right."
To the top right of the second page, in upside down bold letters, is the author’s name, musa bouderdaben.