to a Syrian soap star,
says goodbye to mother, father, sisters.
Israel stamps her passport,
but Syria won't let her through:
the stamp reads Golan,
and Golan is ours. I'll erase it, says
the young Israeli guard, touched
by the bride in dusty white, her hair
a tissue-stuffed pyramid. We have to send
to Assad, says Syria. No! wails the groom,
fingers tangled in the wire. The bride sits
on a folding chair, her cone of hair dipping

between two countries. Red tape,
like red sky, scorches her eyes.
A mother grips the great wall and cries
to Lebanon: What have you done
with my son? He had eyes as green
as the Black Sea, he loved
Elvis - who will give him his milk now?
Her tears water the desert.
On your side grows parsley, on mine, mint.
I lick the leaves, dare them to flower
and tornado the wall. Meanwhile I lift
weights and eat yogurt: wasn't Samson

a woman and Delilah the man
who cut her hair? Watch how I make the tea
on my little fire. Crush green leaves from Sinai,
mud from the Dead Sea, blood from my heart.
Let steep.
Like my Moroccan grandfather, pour
from on high, down to my parched throat.
I splash the tea--dark and orange-
scented--through the barbed holes, glimpse
you crouching to catch
the drops--one by one--
on your Jewish-Arab tongue.