Scott Ferry

some days i don’t know what laughter is

after a poem From Sean Thomas Dougherty "For Gaza" with words from Alejandra Pizarnik

or why someone would make a donut

or a white-frilled cake with a name 

curled in fleshy letters

there are so many dark endings

in a maze that they should be the norm

why normalize twine and light and white sails?

i hold a gun in my dream and i shoot someone 

in the intestines as if it is mundane and now need 

to get rid of the blood and my fingerprints

after i read a friend’s poem i realize 

not saying anything about gaza is just as murderous 

my silence being the color of a coffin 

i have a voice and enough money 

for many thousands of donuts and birthday cakes

but i am saying nothing buying nothing

for fear of being called antisemitic 

as thousands of people die blasted apart 

their fleshy names scripted on the white streets

words that will no longer be on anyone’s lips

much less on any cake or paper 

we are told to burn these killings in our minds 

wash the intestines off the walls

wipe the human fingerprints off the triggers

and allow the fallen to be lost in that crumbling maze 

between martyred and desecrated between numb

and numb until entire families entire lineages 

are erased buried in hospitals and schools

and we hold the guns and we are disemboweled

and we lose our imprints as humans

and we are as faceless and mute as the dead