unlike
other
boys

alan
ireland




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Shatila Relic

The door that is no door
demands remembrance,
speaks of olive groves
but opens to a desolation.

There, the conqueror
with beefy thighs
and bulging belly
shrills his righteousness,

but languishes beside
this ancient copper-work:
the silent key that waits to stain
new fingers with its verdigris.