I give up, I sayto the Palestinian boy holding his breathbeneath the ripples of a branchof the Litani river.I tap his shoulderand rise to the surface early, my chesthalf full of oxygen.I could have outlasted him.
I give up, I say.But reallyI let him win.Victorious, he grins.without knowing
I’ve looked outof rain-washed windowsand wept over an impossible love.I’ve tried with others to end the brutality of warsand find fullness in a lifethat leaves us all empty handed in one way or another.
Someone ought to triumphin a landslideSomeone ought to smileand gasp with delightfor a small victory almost worth dying for.
I give up, I say to the child(though I haven’t really).You win.You’re it.
Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash
About the writer
Kim Jensen. Kim Jensen (kimjensen.org) is a Baltimore-based author, poet, professor, and translator who has lived in California, France, and Palestine. Her books include an experimental novel, The Woman I Left Behind (finalist for Forward Magazine book of the year) and two collections of poems, Bread Alone and The Only Thing that Matters. She was a finalist for the New Millennium Writing Awards and Fordham University’s Poets Out Loud Prize, and a recent awardee for the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation. Active in transnational peace and social justice movements for decades, Kim’s work has been featured in Gulf Coast, MQR, Anthropocene, Consequence, Modern Poetry in Translation, Arkansas International, Decolonial Passage, Transition: The Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora, Anomaly, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, Sukoon, Another Chicago Magazine, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Left Curve, Liberation Literature, and many others. In 2001, she won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction. Kim is currently Professor of English and Creative Writing at the Community College of Baltimore County, where she co-founded an interdisciplinary literacy initiative that demonstrates the vital connection between classroom learning and social justice in the broader community.
