The Shirt

A poem

I wore Palestino upon my chest,
its map embroidered where the heart should beat;
a stranger stopped me, smilingly confessed
he wanted it and might steal it in the street.

Then steal it, I replied, but steal it well;
observe the courtesies, excuse the crime.
We laughed, as civil people do, while hell
killed two more children somewhere at that time.

Their names arrived too late to reach the news;
Their shoes lay listening beside the stone.
The dead, of course, are not allowed to choose
which flag survives, which grief must stand alone.

A satellite, immaculate and bright,
looked down and gathered everything as proof:
the little bodies cooling in the night,
the shirt, the thief, the dust, the broken roof.

Some clerk will file the images by noon;
some statesmen mourn with phrases duly weighed.
The earth turns patiently beneath the moon;
the debt is named, regretted, never paid.

What are we to do but breathe as always done,
while death performs its duties out of sight?
I kept the shirt. He vanished in the sun.
Two children entered Gaza’s endless night.

At Barefoot Cafe, Colombo.
26 July 2026.