Like you, I promise nothing.
To a house blistered by ice I bring
a season of heat,

He must have hated this ground
or maybe loved what he feared.
Every brush stroke seems to whisper,

Today, Yousef, I am not with Hamas
Nor with Fatah, Hezbollah, Taliban or Al Queda.
Don’t mistake me for a man of conscience

I try to picture myself as
the better man, one whose
heart never picks yesterday’s
pocket,

The Pawn is always a pawn, a sucker the dealer spots
a mile away, a collector of dreams with pockets full of holes.

Inside the frame, two angels stand alone,
point their gaze to the distance of mauve and blue,
attuned to something not yet revealed,
an impulse finding shape in the swirl of clouds.