Belief

Detail from a 1975 poster by Helmi Eltouni | Palestine Poster Project Archives

C
o
l
u
m
n
s

Not a main one,
but each time I erase it
I forget my hands over the objects
whose faith
compels their reappearance
on my knuckles.

You are another kind of belief.
It may dominate in the presence of the victim before me
or reach out to the executioner in my heart.
Each case the Monalisa
treats with a smile.

She didn’t fail in her search.
The test of her loss
matures in the belief of her existence.

Read more from our series by Palestinian poets.

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Taghrid Abdelal, a Palestinian born in the Nahr El Bared refugee camp in Lebanon in 1984, is a visual artist, essayist, the author of three poetry collections, and a recent winner of the Young Poets of Palestine by the Qattan Foundation.