You don’t go through the motions
but let them go
through you, work your
trauma like an animal
in the wild might.
You’re amongst friends. See bear, see
dolphin or dragon catching the nothing
that catches them
and releasing it. Holding on only
to what serves them stay free,
an animal knows what that is.
A siege is a zoo
and civility a house pet.
An alphabetical trick
made the chimera in me non observable.
See cicada or when home is a howling
intifada. Your heart, utterly flexible,
a wind like water,
the stubborn wind.
Copyright © 2026 by Fady Joudah. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 5, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
