What Did the Road Do?

               3 July 2023, Jenin

What could the social club have done
to be chosen as the first bomb’s target?
 

What could the shoe shop have done
to be torched to the ground?
 

What could the power line have done
to be cut down into darkness?
 

What could the water main have done
to deserve destruction?
 

What could the family home have done 
to be taken hostage by sharpshooters?
 

What could the ambulance have done
that a woman in labor’s transport was blocked?
 

What could the hospital have done
that soldiers choked its airways with tear gas?
 

What could the roads have done
that bulldozers uprooted them to rubble? 
 

What could the camera gear, the mosque,
the Freedom Theatre, what could the small boy
hands held high above his head—have done?
 

Your own sweet ones, what could they
have done that you raised them to subjugate?
 

That small boy—face terrorized, arms reaching
to the heavens—history is weary
of echoing his image. Only his clothes change.