9/27/2020 POETRY: ELI TAREQ EL BECHELANY-LYNCHHOME = GARBAGE for Khalo looking out the window from my teta’s balcony at the news on my laptop some days they look the same and some days they don’t my aunt says this is weird there have never been any military tanks in zalka before three days in a row imagine the difference between this looks weird and military men directing traffic on a daily basis rifles slung across their shoulders waving the cars to keep going stop, turn left cars in two lanes somehow fitting themselves four wide stop, keep going, turn left this country is corrupt says my uncle this country smells like garbage contracts with the garbage company left unrenewed military men pinching their noses while directing traffic if we can’t manage garbage can we do anything right? we stop, keep going, turn left people sling bags of rotten garbage over mountain sides over roadsides drop garbage onto houses into the ocean anywhere but garbage disposal where to dispose when there is nowhere four months and my uncle is hospitalized lungs filled with pollution hundreds of people in the country polluted beirut protesters push industrial garbage bins into the middle of the road try pretending that doesn’t exist aimed at government officials refusing press people start to move them most people drive around them an obstacle course in preserving ignorance let us press our ignorance deeper throw bags over the shoulders of refugees this country is too small as though that’s the only problem religion into garbage brown sludge building when it’s too hot to stay inside my family heads to the beach stops at a checkpoint on the way up the mountains the military man with a rifle across his shoulders barely looks wipes sweat off his brow bored, nods, motions us forward the privilege of christianity there are hundreds of military checkpoints in this tiny country hundreds of bored military men stop, keep going, shmel there are thousands of palestinians in refugee camps in this country stop, undocumented, prohibited movement hindered by checkpoints in and out stop, undocumented, prohibited I don’t live in zalka anymore but every year I visit the garbage keeps growing downtown beirut skyscrapers hiding the garbage close the back windows or we’ll smell garbage speeding on the only highway in lebanon past garbage piles in flames taller than the gas station beside it my uncle’s lungs filled with garbage this country is corrupt, says my uncle and I ask him why he’s still here it’s home, he says, his nose plugged my family came back 18 years ago this is home, they say lungs filled with garbage Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory (Montreal). Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, the Shade Journal, Arc Poetry Magazine, Room Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. knot body, a collection of creative non-fiction and poetry will be published September 2020 by Metatron Press, and The Good Arabs, a poetry collection, will be published in Fall 2021 with Metonymy Press. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq.
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