Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear | A poem by Mosab Abu Toha, 2021

Isamu Noguchi, Paris Abstraction, 1928

For Alicia M. Quesnel, MD

When you open my ear, touch it
gently.
My mother’s voice lingers somewhere inside.
Her voice is the echo that helps recover my equilibrium
when I feel dizzy during my attentiveness.

You may encounter songs in Arabic,
poems in English I recite to myself,
or a song I chant to the chirping birds in our backyard.

When you stitch the cut, don’t forget to put all these back in my ear.
Put them back in order as you would do with books on your shelf.

The drone’s buzzing sound,
the roar of an F-16,
the screams of bombs falling on houses,
on fields, and on bodies,
of rockets flying away—
rid my small ear canal of them all.

Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision.
Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up.
Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours,
my doctor, day and night.

Mosab Abu Toha, March 2021

Palestinian poet and founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s only English-language library.

Also:
Visibility | The Poetic Voices of Arab women from Algeria to Palestine
If you are not rain, my love | A poem by Mahmoud Darwish, 2002
A Vibrant World | The poetic voices of Arab women from Algeria to Palestine