The Bridge Between

 

 

Between a Yankee, killing, falling in Iraq
and freedom fighters who would die
so the world can live;

 

A native boy sentenced by cops to freeze to death*

An Arab man
deported to a lawless land**;

 

Between the blisters on your face:
hot desert sand
and angels
boys and girls would make on a snow bank;

 

Between the death in Dair-Yaseen of forty-eight
and New York City on that day
towers collapsed;

Between my dreams in
this metropolis of the north
and the city of minarets,
my land of birth …

 

I am a bridge

September 20, 2003

 

* Native Canadian Neil Stonechild, Saskatoon, 1990.

** Arab Canadian Maher Arar, deported from NY to Syria, 2002.