What is home:

it is the shade of trees on my way to school before they were uprooted.

It is my grandparents’ black-and-white wedding photo before the walls
crumbled.

It is my uncle’s prayer rug, where dozens of ants slept on wintry nights, before it was looted and
put in a museum.

It is the oven my mother used to bake bread and roast chicken before a bomb reduced our
house to ashes.

It is the café where I watched football matches and played —

My child stops me: Can a four-letter word hold all of these?

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian from Gaza. He is founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library.

His collection Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear, City Lights, 2022, won the American Book Award, the Palestinian Book Award, and the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize.

He was imprisoned by the Israeli army last week with around 200 other people. Uniquely, he was released but required medical attention for the beating he had received.
 

Read a translation of the poem into 21 languages, lithub.com/where-is-mosab-abu-toha-a-poem-from-gaza-in-21-languages,
 

Poetry submissions to [email protected].