Yazan el-Kafarna, left, with his brothers Wael, centre, and Mouin [Courtesy of the el-Kafarna family]
Yazan’s mother counts his bones
4:30am South Carolina
Thunderous rain floods, rattles, tangles
letters and words that no longer sprout
unformed words are swallowed
by rabid hunger 6000 miles away,
in Al Shati, the beach refugee camp-Gaza
Naeema, the blessed, contented, the fortunate,
her name says,
in Gaza
she holds her son, Yazan, the one who weighs, the determined,
his name says,
in Gaza
the blessed counts with her fingers the 2-year-old bones
of the one who weighs, the determined one,
who does not weigh much anymore
Yazan’s mother’s fingers count his two-year-old bones
two years in the world of bombs
two years on a hungry shaking earth
that swallows bodies ravenously
two years under smoke-filled sky
two years of stunted bones
being counted with a mother’s fingers
and the “Never Again” is spoken again and again
while Yazan’s bones
protrude
Naeema’s fingers count
Yazan’s bones
protest
and his weightless body mingles with the hollowed “Never again”
