Editor’s Note: The following two poems were part of a series on The Margins responding to the idea of unfreedom and the continuous and connected struggles for freedom globally. Watch “The Sweat of Love and the Fire of Truth: A Reading,” our event featuring writers who reflect on freedoms, whether they be collective, practiced out in the world, or of the body and mind.

Broken Ghazal, Before Balfour

“It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.
—The Balfour Declaration, 1917

It being clearly understood that the gazelle was not 
always a border between extinct and endangered. 

It being clearly understood that ground sumac & the heart of a pomegranate 
are proof enough that a country can coagulate in our hands. 

It being clearly understood that every image of Elysium came from somewhere; 
that inside every heaven there is an earth we’ve mourned the loss of. 

It being clearly understood that wandering, 
itself, can become a type of home. 

It being clearly understood that there was never a Palestinian people, came from 
the mouth of a settler who, when asked where are you from, replied Chicago. 

It being clearly understood that the settler’s father 
was “Palestinian” by his own definition. 

It being clearly understood that, in his childhood, Sido would wander 
the streets of Jerusalem with his Jewish neighbors every morning. 

It being clearly understood that 
they fell out of touch. 

It being clearly understood that, while the gazelle is the most Palestinian thing to
write about, I’ve never seen one. I’m starting to think we made them up.

It being a clearly understood 
mythology. 

It being clearly understood that 
Israel’s Right To Exist. 

It being clearly understood that, when our cathedrals & mosques were 
burning, there was never anything to mourn. 

It being clearly understood that our churches were built before 
their ancestors’ ancestors’ ancestors knew Christianity existed. 

It being clearly understood that the church will use their best endeavors 
to facilitate the achievement of this object. 

It being clearly understood that this object,
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing 
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing in Palestine. 

It being clearly understood that 
Palestine. 

It being clearly understood that His Majesty’s Government views with favor. 
The establishment in. Any other country. 

It being clearly 
religious. 

It being clear. 

Understood. 

ars poetica in which every pronoun is a Free Palestine

& so it is written: the settlers will steal God’s land & FREE PALESTINE
will curse the settlers with an inability to season FREE PALESTINE’s food, 

a sunburn the shape of the settler dictator’s face on everyone who will claim 
FREE PALESTINE’s earth but not FREE PALESTINE’s skin

soil-stained. there. FREE PALESTINE said it. no one really owns anything FREE
PALESTINE didn’t unwrite to make it so—FREE PALESTINE’s sea

israeli; FREE PALESTINE’s sky israeli but not FREE PALESTINE’s thunder—
the blame will always be FREE PALESTINE’s & so this will be called an accurate

history; the expense of FREE PALESTINE’s visibility, willed in bloodied cloth—
or paper—FREE PALESTINE’s longest suicide: FREE PALESTINE will die

in jail & become israeli—FREE PALESTINE will die in protest & become
kite on fire—FREE PALESTINE will call Hamas fable of every

HEADLINE: israeli falafel so dry FREE PALESTINE could start an intifada with it
HEADLINE: israeli falafel so dry FREE PALESTINE could free Palestine with it

no, FREE PALESTINE will never give FREE PALESTINE’s self a name 
not rooted in upheaval—FREE PALESTINE, hyphenated by settler flag:

FREE PALESTINE hyphenated by settler pronouns: FREE PALESTINE will not 
pledge allegiance to Arabic. or english. FREE PALESTINE will exist

in no language; FREE PALESTINE will write poems of olive tree & checkpoint 
with no free Palestine to be found; FREE PALESTINE will name the violence 

& never the resurrection, like FREE PALESTINE hasn’t survived impossible 
histories to get here. It is written: the blood will be on FREE PALESTINE’s 

hands—might as well paint FREE PALESTINE’s nails while FREE PALESTINE’s 
at it—what? is this not what FREE PALESTINE expected? did FREE 

PALESTINE not think FREE PALESTINE would have the last laugh all along?

“ars poetica in which every pronoun is a Free Palestine” was first published in Mizna‘s The Palestine Issue (19.2, 2018) and republished with permission by the author.

Both “Broken Ghazal, Before Balfour” and “ars poetica in which every pronoun is a Free Palestine” are published in Birthright by George Abraham, released in April 2020 by Button Poetry. Both have been republished with permission by the author.

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If these poems could define unfreedom or freedom: “Freedom (and lack thereof) is a function of imagination—what imagination are we building, or allowing ourselves to build towards? How are borders, nationalisms, capitalism, and the languages thereof, internalized? How can we save our imaginations therein?”