spectator ghazal

after Hala Alyan 

I’ve lost track of the seasons, which fall
came before which winter? watch, 

here are the riches of my kingdom: a kitchen sink
that leaks like a wound, and my mother’s watch. 

tomorrow, the sun again. its heat, a curse.
in my delirium, the leak becomes flood. I watch 

a colony hurtle towards its promised demise.
front row seat on the nightmare express, I watch 

 the nearby sea hissing like a taunt. mothers’
wails hurricane unto scorched earth. I watch 

severed lifespans trickle into empire’s mulch while
I tear dollars into shrapnel. in America, I watch 

you with your gun, your hand on the trigger.
my beating heart, a flag at half-mast. watch 

me do a bait and switch. half past noon. in a stranger’s
arms, I think of carnations. he asks me to watch. 

says, imagine a seesaw with a heart on one end, a cluster bomb
on the other. says, name someone you can’t lose, now watch 

me kill them on my lunch break, one happy meal at a time.
half past midnight. sleep comes. I am made to watch:  

the boy with a cracked skull, all over again, his sister
with half an arm, you, with not even half a spine, watch 

 your sales tax wash off the coast of a mass grave. how many
missiles for your coffee, your quiet, your killer moves? watch 

me as I am remade in the shape of a phantom pain
swollen, loud, invincible, impossible to ignore. watch 

me turn on you like a coin. by which I mean, show me how you come
undone when the curtain starts burning, and there’s nothing left to watch.