Warmth
By Lisa Majaj
It’s hard to imagine that this cold will break
before it breaks us. I go through my closets,
searching for things to donate, shivering
in my woolen layers: it feels wrong to turn
the heat up when so many are suffering.
Survivors found alive under the rubble die
of hypothermia, while rescue workers
struggle to search the debris—
their hands too chilled to pick up anything.
At the municipal center, long tables pile up
with coats, blankets, biscuits, baby food.
Someone will collect these offerings, ship them
to survivors. It’s 278 km from Nicosia to Hatay.
The death toll is 41,000 and rising.
My bags of warm things won’t go very far,
though I hope they’ll bring some ravaged person
a glimmer of care. We’re helpless in the face
of this much destruction. We keep on trying.
I head back into the bitter day. On the way home
I stop to pick up milk, the jug cool against my hand.
An image of children blue under the rubble
flashes through my mind. I quickly make my brain
go blank so I can drive. I can’t afford an accident,
I have more donations to pick up later. Back home
I notice one late yellow rose clinging to the vine
in my yard. I think of snipping it for the vase
on my ledge, but decide to leave it out there.
I can see it from the window, and the birds
can too. It’s not much, but in this frigid cold,
every bit of warmth is necessary.
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Lisa Suhair Majaj is a Palestinian-American writer. She is author of Geographies of Light, which won the 2008 Del Sol Press Poetry Prize, of poetry and essays in numerous journals and anthologies, and of two children’s books. Her poetry has been used in various forums, from art exhibits to political protests, and was was displayed as part of the 2016 photography exhibition Aftermath: The Fallout of War—America and the Middle East at the Harn Museum of Art in Florida. She lives in Cyprus.
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