Turn off the lights in every room / sit in the inner hallway of the house / away from the windows / stay away from the stove / stop thinking about making black tea / have a bottle of water nearby / big enough to cool down / children’s fear / get a child’s kindergarten backpack and stuff / tiny toys and whatever amount of money there is / and the ID cards / and photos of late grandparents, aunts, or uncles / and the grandparents’ wedding invitation that’s been kept for a long time / and if you are a farmer, you should put some strawberry seeds / in one pocket / and some soil from / the balcony flowerpot in the other / and hold on tight / to whatever number there was / on the cake / from the last birthday.

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Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian from the Gaza Strip. His debut book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (2022) won the Palestine Book Award. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha was born in 1992 in the Al-Shati refugee camp, shortly before the signing of the Oslo Accords. He graduated in English from the Islamic University of Gaza. In 2017, he founded the Edward Said Library, an English-language public library in Beit Lahia, of which second branch was opened in Gaza City in 2019. In 2023, he earned a MFA in Poetry from Syracuse University in the United State.

This poem has been published by VISUAL in collaboration with Abu Toha. It was originally published by the New York Review of Books in May 2023.

Click here to donate to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. PCRF’s mission is to provide medical and humanitarian relief collectively and individually to children throughout the Levant, regardless of their nationality or religion. Founded in 1991 by concerned humanitarians in the USA, PCRF provides free medical care to thousands of injured and ill children yearly.