A Poem For Healthcare Workers Braving Israeli Bombing In Gaza

The Gaza Fellowship?

Under fire and threat of armed expulsion?
With little more than bare hands?
You will learn how to keep alive?
The world’s last living patient?
Match the wristband with the consent paper?
You read to your colleague the name ‘Hope’?
She is bloodied and shrapnel punctured?
Her limbs are somewhere under the rubble?
Of Jabaliya?
She is no longer whole?
Yet she carries in her arms?
The unborn?
And the ghosts of Al Shifa?
And the shattered hearts of the bereaved?
And the empty hands of orphans?
Tiny fingers?
Seeking to curl themselves around?
The hand they will always sense?
But never know?
And and and on and in into infinity?
Yet she breathes?
Because you will not leave your patient?
It’s not because of medicine?
Because you learned that?
When the medicine runs out?
When the blood banks run dry?
When the gauze is deleted?
When the light goes out?
She still breathes?
By your healing hands?
By your resolve?
To push your breath into her lungs?
And stay by her side?