Just Another Colonizer After All

I walk the market of Bethlehem, and somehow
it lives. Even here, between watch towers that speak
in dread warnings; over bodies and water flowing
nowhere except as walled sentries will it; where the doves
wear kevlar in their layaway among the olive groves.

Teitas tend to fly-worn donkeys faithfully, here and there,
but most hawkers sit silent, half my age, with sandals swinging.
Their faces emerge like patience from the desert to beam
or grimace at the day’s business - but not for me.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed giant from the hostel,
who followed me through the checkpoint, stood amazed.
Everyone wanted him - an American - to buy their thyme,
their pomegranates, their thick-rooted handal. Grown
locally, of course, empathy-free.

He said I should try taking a walkabout of my own,
and I thought maybe I’d come away carrying
the kind of stories you can’t haggle your way into,
that say more than just “Product of Palestine.”

Later that day, boarding the bus to Beit She’an, a boy
in an IDF uniform mistakes me - something about
my leather jacket, and a face that’s always something
to somebody - and before I can say a word, he hands me
his M16, and starts stowing his ruck overhead.

So there I am, his safety’s off, he’s huffing-and-puffing
trying to get his bag up there, and his whole squad’s staring at us
from their seats. Not saying boo. Waiting to see what pops
off, like this is just another day at summer camp.

He’s nattering away at me in Hebrew like we go to temple
together, and I start to wonder if he can hear the telltale
whistle-that-turns-into-a-scream of white hot embarrassment.
But he’s all tongue, no ears, and all I can do is watch as he makes
himself the butt of every joke made thereafter on their way
north for border patrol - from Jerusalem to the Jordan River
Crossing - about how gave away his rifle to an American.

I guess I looked like just another colonizer after all.