Each loss an abyss
a black hole
on Earth
Each black hole
a testament to annihilation
to childhoods crushed
by bombs
rubble
snipers
starvation
This missing
is a relentless vast ocean
lapping at our shores
The shock
will not stop knocking
at our doors
This grief attaches
like arms and legs
of a child
encircling our bodies
holding us tight
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, editor, community activist, and poet laureate emerita of Alexandria, Virginia. She volunteers for organizations that promote Palestinian rights and the civil rights of vulnerable communities in Alexandria, Virginia, where she is active with the group Grassroots Alexandria. She also serves as the poetry editor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza. Zeina's poetry collection, Some Things Never Leave You, was released by Tiger Bark Press and her chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, by The Poetry Box. Her poems also appear in Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Massachusetts Review, Plume, Vox Populi, Mizna, Sukoon Magazine, Split This Rock, and the edited volumes The Southern Poetry Anthology, The Black River: Death Poems, Making Levantine Cuisine, Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, and Gaza Unsilenced, among others. Zeina holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University. www.zeinaazzam.com.