Alice Walker wrote this poem for Mohammed Salayme, who was killed on his 17th birthday in Hebron, and his Israeli killer, who has been identified in media reports as Nofar Mizrahi, a 19-year-old woman. Thanks to Nurit Peled-Elhanan and Ofer Neiman.
You Were Sixteen
© 2012 by Alice Walker
You were sixteen
and on your way to pick up
your birthday
cake.
My partner offers
photographs
of your battered
head
that I cannot
view.
photographs
of your battered
head
that I cannot
view.
You have died under the blows.
Look at the soldier
he says
when he sees
my eyes
are turning away:
Sixteen too,
perhaps.
Dressed in the olive
drab
of her country’s
police; too young
to imagine
as she poses
above her kill
that she has murdered
a dream of youth
that will haunt
her
her whole life.
