Streaming Radio Nablus

  by Meg Porter

We now know how the old 
women cry in Nablus from deep inside 
the radios which carry
voices into the transient beyond
where kinship is a violation
and walls are the dominion.

Grandmothers of ya habibti and ya ayooni 
please send us cloth bags full
of clean bulghur, ones  that are
tightened by your old hands, send us
blisters or blood on Radio Nablus.
and we will bring perfume and slippers
when we arrive, we promise.

How she cries, that old woman
on the radio, for Hadi and Iman
to pour the tea and kiss her faces.
Her voices are dry
commands of echo and ache
on the seas of return, listen, stay.