Gaza, January 2009

In seven years, we’ve got a whole new body.

– Li-Young Lee, Breaking the Alabaster Jar

A European doctor on emergency duty in Gaza says

it’s like being bombed in a cage,

and I think of how it must seem

to those already hospitalized

with wounds that may never heal

to hear the wham and whistle

smash and screech of missiles,

the rumble of earth giving way underneath

as they lie immobilized

waiting for medicine.

Even the body of a patient lying quietly,

incarcerated, on life support,

generates three billion cells a minute.

In seven years, he could have a whole new body,

not as it was, but brimming with life.

Where is Joseph, whose dreams saved

both Egyptians and the brothers who betrayed him?

Water brims to the top of a tube and trembles there.