Five poems by Omar Sakr
Omar Sakr is the son of Arab and Turkish Muslim migrants. He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Lost Arabs (UQP), which won the 2020 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, and a novel, Son of Sin (Affirm Press, 2022). He was awarded the 2023 Bess Hokin Prize by Poetry Magazine. His latest book is Non-Essential Work. He lives on Dharug land, where he was born and raised.
How to identify your loves in the genocide
By their hands
By the bracelet
By the shape of their absence
In the food line
In the fuel line
By their hands
By the bracelet
By hair peeking out the pile
Do not say they are in pieces
They are everywhere
Good in the genocide
I have all the records of good
Occurring despite the genocide,
Extravagant kindnesses
The occupied in Gaza managed
To miracle in the misery
From the _____ to the _____
And I will not tell you of them
You do not deserve their beauty
…Look how cruel you’ve made me.
In whose image was this written?
O God! Forgive me, I still want you
To suffer.
Reflection in the genocide
My son alights on his prize—a mirrored box—and is transfigured. He can see himself and wants nothing more than to release what’s within. He shakes his arm, producing a rhythmic clatter. He can’t get in. He can’t let go. He careens around the living, his whole body bent to the task, distracted by the music made in the struggle. I’ve seen this process play out with a flower, a book, a banana, the moon, the wind; he is always clutching something. My hands are full of loss. I can’t get in. I can’t let go.
Kisses in the genocide
I used to tear out clumps of hair
Fistfuls of white and grey, stark
Against the black. Until the day
Ato told me each brilliant fleck
marked the kiss of an ancestor. Now
When I look in the mirror I’m swept
Under the silver field, the early elders
The astonishing weight of love.
Holocaust in the genocide
The living and dead, my friends
And enemies, all are obscured
By millions of memories—
What some call human
Shields. Nobody has devised
A more complete weapon.