The King’s Palace Near Jerusalem (قصر الملك قرب القدس)

By Ameer Hamad (tr. Gabrielle Alvarez)

The palace was there on the hill

overlooking the divide between the settlements closeby

and the neighborhoods of “the indigenous people”

between the sails of the Mediterranean Sea

and the manuscripts of the Lake of Sodom

It did not catch on fire

and its bones did not illuminate the arteries of extravagance

It hung in the air by a wooden clip

and I used to stare at it from the peephole of my balcony door

(Before a tongue of cement licked the space between us)

dreaming of my name dragging me to it

on my green bulldozer that has the paper flag

to rule with a pistol of plastic

the people of my toy cabinet.