An honorable mention from the 2024 Bird in Your Hands Contest
SLINGSHOT SUTRA
I don’t want to be a Palestinian poet.
I don’t want to be in a knife fight with a battleship,
or launch stones at Stealth Bombers from a slingshot,
but culture runs twenty years ahead of politics…
In a bank parking lot, I tied a weight to the corner
of an American flag flapping in the wind, stunting its dance.
In the streets of Paris, I walked past old men in lush parks
and women exiting luxury stores, holding a gold-framed photo
of Abū Muṣʻab al-Zarqāwī over my head…
Back when I was a Palestinian artist.
Edward Salem is a 2023 Kresge Artist Fellow, a recipient of the PEN/Dau Prize, and the winner of the BOMB Fiction Contest, selected by Ottessa Moshfegh. His writing appears or is forthcoming in Narrative, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He is the co-founder of City of Asylum/Detroit.
