Displaced Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip. CCA-4.0
By Naomi Foyle
The world is on fire –
the crowded spots
of the invasive species
on my windowsill
foretell famine
that has already hit
Gaza, Sudan, Yemen.
No, it’s good luck,
my friend says, to find
one in your house:
each black dot
prophesizes a coin
to come into your hand.
God knows
what they’re living on –
dust mites, maybe,
or paper-thin air,
overwintering,
as prescribed
for us exhausted Europeans
whose ancestors
prayed to Our Lady
in her carmine robe,
and were sent a host
of scarlet-winged beetles
to devour the aphids
feasting on crops.
O what a spilled puzzle
of blood drops
crawls in our curtains
as we burn distant fields –
scorching stubble,
incinerating infants
trapped in charred beds
as their emaciated mothers
fly home
through the rubble.
