Ilari Pass

—After Em Berry’s “Because of Us”

The English word is gauze—(a finely woven medical cloth), comes from the Arabic word غزة or Ghazza because Gazans have been skilled weavers for centuries.

There is no need to wonder

Wounds will continue

to be left open

and not because

There isn’t enough wounds

left in the world

that can’t be dressed

But because we have

ran out of all the gauzes

to save anyone that is left

Daedalus

the boy washed ashore

with melted wings, his still body lay

for days—turning and turning

one new color after another

Ilari Pass is a four-time Best of the Net nominee and other accolades, with Greatest Hits appear or forthcoming in BULL, Dialogist, South Dakota Review, Cutleaf Journal, Pithead Chapel, and others.

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