Lottery Winner

She points proudly to her wrist-
a number which didn’t come up. 
She was a life-winning lottery winner
in a battery hen raffle.

her childhood education
was gained in a school of pain

Rejecting another virtuous hatred
She left Israel 
unable to condemn an Other
equally different, homeless
to a similar prison.

What she is means nothing
if they chose to forget.
   she is saddened
what do all the deaths mean,
if there might as well be
Jackboots in Jerusalem,
bringing back baleful sorrow.

Stinging tears, harsh blows
to a conscience created 
behind barbed wire, in a mind
that remembers less lucky lives
left unfinished, lingering, 
telling her not to erase but 
   to embrace.