One Poem
by Ava Nathaniel Winter
Archived Light
Associated Press Photograph, Palestine, 1948
A circle of white stones catches the sun.
Before I read the photograph’s caption,
I am afraid I know what it marks.
I want to imagine the children
who dug the graves felt remorse,
as though they had done the killing,
that they mark the women’s grave
because they would want their mothers’
graves to be marked. This fantasy
asks a lot of children. More likely,
the grave markers echo the Haganah
Radio broadcasts: Remember Deir Yassin.
Note
“Archived Light” responds to photograph #131 in the decolonial political philosopher Ariella Azoulay’s book, From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950.
Ava Nathaniel Winter is a transgender Jewish poet and the author of Transgenesis, a winner of the National Poetry Series forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in August 2024. She holds a PhD from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, where she teaches in the Department of English and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.