Abdul Rahman Siyam

[a poem moving through the lattice like a second atmosphere]

WHISPER

Abdul Rahman Siyam. Newborn. Grandson of the poet Refaat Alareer, who had already been written out of the city in December. The poem asked that someone make kites of him if he must die. The ordinance does not read poems.

The infant was in a house with his mother, Shaimaa, an illustrator, and his father, Mohammed. The house was in Al-Rimal. The strike did not ask who had already been taken from this family.

A newborn has no “affiliation.” A newborn has no tunnel. A newborn is the argument the war-language cannot survive, which is why the war-language never says his name.

[SIGH: ink still wet on a family tree that no longer has a trunk]

If I must die, the poet wrote. The child was not given even that clause. We record him. We do not scrub.