Grotesque, Broadcasted

i scroll instagram mindlessly, attention
captured & abused, and uncover a photo, accidentally:
broadcasted, 			accidentally,
alongside manicured advertisements
                & cries for help
                that have slipped
                                through
                the algorithm's teeth,
each one just another soft voice
in the storm’s dark eye.
this photo is of palestinians,
all resisting
simply by being, by staying,
and here, they read Mao with lips pursed,
pensive, all lined up,
side by side. they are brothers
                                           in arms, and i know:
they were just
                                           brothers, once:
they could,
                    again,
                                           be just brothers
if only we would let them–
make our amerikkkan money wither
away until there is none left
to kill them with,
so the tanks & guns pointed
at their bodies would have to wither, too
and then, they could at last enjoy
                                           a simple, sprawling summer day,
                                           finally drinking their pomegranate wine
                                           and ripping breads to dip in
                                           the olive oils from their farms–
                    no longer watching it leave for New York,
                    marked Israeli,
                    while they & their brothers are starved–
                and they could sit on the shore by the ocean,
                on the land under the trees,
                they know intimately, 
eat every good food they’ve not had the pleasure
of pressing to their tongues
for so long;
watch this calm night where the moon rises slow
like an old friend.
they wouldn’t need to keep
                                           wishing: for loving 
that doesn’t taste like ash,
doesn’t mean mourning–
fighting; 
             knowing
                                           it can be,
             knowing this
                                           does not need to be
                                           the end,
             knowing that
                                           we have nothing to lose
but our dirtied, rusting chains
and the dead that would die–
                                           that we would mourn–
anyway,
and that we must one day be free
if it’s the last thing we will ever be