The Palestinian terrorists
Offer us food until we are full
And then offer more
In order to explode us
Serving us tea, coffee, juice, soda, milk, water
Until we are forced to say things
Only people being tortured say,
Like please, I can’t take any more, I will tell you anything
Only please stop forcing such kindness and hospitality on me
Please, no more meats, greens, rice, falafel
No more olives, lemons, grapefruit,
Or four different kinds of oranges we must learn to distinguish the tastes of
The Spanish, the French, he bitter, the sweet,
The zatar, the hummus, home made cheeses, bread
Admiring pictures of our grandchildren
As if such caring will cause us to drop our guard
Quoting Wordsworth to make us cry
Introducing us to their daughters
The teachers and the poetesses
Their grandchildren
The artists and the singers
Their son in laws
The professors and the engineers
Who must go through four checkpoints
To get to work
A twenty minute trip
That takes two hours
Their entire family
Terrorists all
Offering us a bed, a roof, a song
A drive on the tractor to their occupied fields
To plant olive trees with us on a hillside.
“And why are you not afraid?”
Asks the distracted Israeli soldier
At the gate barring entry to our grooves and fields
His fingers tracing absently over his machine gun trigger
“They are terrorists,” he says,
They kill people.”
And you say nothing
Having noticed well
Who holds the power
Who has the nuclear arsenal
And who the real terrorists are.
While your hosts tell you tales from Byzantine days
And sing to you, all of them, in English,
“We Shall Overcome.”
© BRTaub 02/08