Four New Poems by Zena Agha

Introduction by Zena Agha

These poems were written during the fever dream of maternity leave—moving between the intimate and the political, confronting the grief and joy of becoming a parent during global catastrophe and facing the question of what it means to herald life in a time of genocide.

In these selected works, I navigate two parallel but overlapping ruptures: the birth of a child and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Two Teeth and Four Teeth track the passage of time—not by weeks and months, but by the slow, insistent emergence of the baby’s teeth as war rages on. Those events became intimately intertwined—and these poems explore the disorientation of that. 

Looking With and Victoria Embankment Gardens are more legible, yet no less fractured. Both underpinned by colonial violence—in the past and today, these poems draw a line between British colonialism and Zionists’ ongoing colonization of Palestine, two brutal forces inextricably linked, preternaturally and at birth. What emerges from these poems, is an exploration of those contradictory, intertwined histories and experiences.

a little tooth in her mouth and Beirut has been bombed in the park the news teems in the trees she can hold an orange for a few minutes then it’s over more might come in the night she takes water these July days are hot then news of the assassination the whole family gone almost she opens and closes her palm on Nuseirat more strikes what happens when a crater is shelled again and again she splashes now likes being toweled dry the earth cracks time for a haircut a riot at the prison strands fall over eyes against sanctioning the rapists she’s taller than ever some clothes too small impunity dresses in suits sounds are changing she waits for a pause the radio opens with Hamas-run and ends with control center she twists during changes in the middle rotting bodies and amputations on kitchen tables she holds onto noses what do they mean by regional war sitting up close to but leaning to the side to look at you

he’s well in July he
heard the israelis
decimated his house
we love what we can
do in our homes,
walk between rooms,
kiss our wives, wear
no clothes
during the Revolt the
british ordered us
‘destroy your homes’
in Silwan we would
rather leave rubble in
the place we were
mandated to demolish than be
Sisyphus

another one pushing through and more assassinations gums deep pink in the mornings deadly raids on Tulkarem darker now but still bright the nurse said he saw the sea a week of October rain and some flooding from his rooftop she spins in the crib but is not allowed a permit to go now the leaves all maple do anything and say proscribed terrorist her hair in the center of the city bombs ongoing won’t lay flat smoke where Burj al Barajneh once stood since the haircut with the barber from Idlib and a strike on Damascus she’s racing ahead license to do anything all day just the whistle and chemtrails sitting up for hours and another changeover of clothes more friends having babies all burned and unburied her hands snatch glasses, hair, singed flesh and dust so close to crawling yes all out for all-out war she knows her name a year encompassing many years catch her hand in yours

materialised in bronze
concrete, a soldier
atop a camel, rifle 

strapped in arm, legs
reposed, an expression
of ambivalence, below

the relief two
sprinting figures sporting
shorts guns hats

engraved engagements
1916 – 1917 – 1918
a century along

faded    Rafa Beersheba
Gaza 1 Gaza 2

immortalised subtext
for when the present
tense engulfs

it took Allenby
three attempts

and the horizon
belongs to us