Poems of Peace: Felix Eshiet, "Shells"

Shells

after June Jordan

You came with shells.

And left them: shells.

 

Everyday

I listen for the sea inside me.

Some days, it pulses,

Most days, the tides

Never come back .

The war I was trained for

had moved underground.

No more sirens,

Only the scars

from dying in installments.

I’ve outlived so many orders.

Eat. Work.

Sleep. Swallow.

Don’t ask:

Shells

There’s no ceasefire

in a body that keeps waking.

From what law do you judge a soul

that pays no allegiance to

a god?

The universe says: survive.

But never says

how.

I light matches in the open,

in the greening wheat field;

so no one else can say they lit the fire,

so I can feel the burn belongs to me.

Peace is the moment

I don't aim

at myself

in the mirror.