Tuesday, December 3Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

In Mo(u)rning

I wake in morning,

in the ruins of myself,

in a tangle and un-

tangle of small destructions,

(and greater ones)

and these destructions,

they run machine-like, calculated,

soldier-march their way

into the roadwork of my grandfather’s veins

I wake in morning,

to black tea and all the newspapers,

    to the stories of Nablus, of back-home

     of home, he says, that is much more home

    than this skeleton one will ever be

my grandfather,

he speaks of dust, of bombs,

of the houses they took and all the bodies,

but my grandfather, he also speaks

of weddings, of singing and of fields,

of lemon farms and honey,

he speaks of so much honey.

I wake in mourning

for the buds of his laughter,

for a home that is mine – and not,

    for the olive trees growing in cemeteries,

in between all the stones and bodies, bodies

bodies

(the only way they know how to)