We Got Used to It

We sit on plastic chairs
like passengers
on a very strange flight.
A flight where everyone
pretends
to know the route.

We’ve studied everything.
We know the theory.
Which war we need,
and which we don’t.
What to read.
And what not to read.

The phone
glows in our palms
like a small window
into a world that,
supposedly,
knows more.

An interception.
Or an impact.
Don’t open it.
It’s fake.

Between “not yet”
and “already”
a minute stretches.

We wait
for the dull sound,
while the sky
decides something without us.
While a conversation goes on
to which we were not invited.

And all we can do
is listen.
Listen
and wait.

But a person cannot
wait forever.

A person
gets tired.

Hours pass.
Days pass.

The waiting
shrinks.
The minute
no longer matters.
It slips into the routine,
fits itself
into the day.

The neighbor’s Yorkshire terrier
shakes like a tiny motor.
Children are distracted
with cheerful sounds.
We cover our ears
and keep living.
Brush our teeth.
Boil an egg.
Grab the keys.
Step away from the bomb.

What else would you suggest?
Sit and listen forever?
Sit and wait forever?
A person gets used to everything.

This becomes
part of life.
Like the heat.
Like the khamsin.
Like bad driving.

I understand.
I understand all of it.
We are strong.
Very strong.
We have all
gotten used to it.

Dance.
Joke.
Drink coffee.
Plan a life.
You’re used to it.
It’s part of life.

You’re so strong.

But how much I don’t want
the sirens in our ears
to become
like the wind
or the sound
of warm waves.

How much I don’t want
our children
to be distracted
with coloring books
on the floor.

While we sit
on these plastic chairs
and continue
this strange flight.

A flight
in which no one
really knows
the route.

But everyone
tries very hard,
pretending
that they do.