Ekphrasis On “The New York Times” Headline “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom”

^{after Leila Chatti}

let me praise not the wasp & the paper nest, 
the caterpillar’s soft green coat, the trapdoor 
spider & her low warm house, the tunnel 
& the milky white egg, the larvae in the egg, no, 
not praise, thick emerald of a jungle, despite 
that there is no jungle, & I’ll not praise 
the desert, her vat of stars, the stars like an earring 
pinned to a grandfather’s coat, again, no coat, 
no fabrics called raw silk or gauze, no glaze 
of the sun on the sea like honey on phyllo dough, 
see how simile orders all things, takes logic 
& reduces to an arc of thought, see flood 
& floodgate & fear, no praise for the hand 
that harms me & if I be an insect so be it 
& let me sting, I’ll praise only the true thing 
for what it is, no metaphor, here I praise 
the name of a child called Jibreel, a real child, 
a child named for the angel messenger 
bearing only good news. 

Copyright © 2024 by Emily Khilfeh. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Dehumanization happens in many forms. Sometimes it’s through racist opinion columns, but sometimes it’s less intentional and more insidious. I’m not obligated to make genocide beautiful, artful, or syntactically dazzling. The earring noted in the poem belongs to Reem, who was murdered in Gaza in November. She was three.”
—Emily Khilfeh