Letter to a Suicide Bomber
    Ruth Knafo Setton
Tell me this: before you detonate
the chubby girl on her way home
from school, the old man reading
Borges, the woman dressing
at the window, the boy
with shy eyes and spiked hair-

are the 70 virgins in purple?
your harem in heaven-as their blood bursts
beneath your pounding, as your fingertips
touch a charred page of Borges-the one

where he writes a story
that has already been written.




Hijacked

    Ruth Knafo Setton
Hijacked: on the threshold
of spreading the word-new words:

cell phone, as in: “Tell the children,”

touch, as in: “Two who jumped, hand
      in hand,”

--the elevator smells of Old Spice and oranges,
the office boy rubbed pimple cream

over chin and nose,
so that when he moves to music we don’t hear

arms flapping, wings

Hijacked, as in: “Don’t ever wear those sunglasses when

you go out,”

cracked pink, still hissing

ash, as in: “A third of the city is under ash-
      ash on our flesh,”

Oh my God, as in:




 
 
 
 

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