Documentary

by Edward Salem

It was totally inappropriate to have sex

with my ex after watching Gaza Strip

on the creaking leather couch.

There was a morgue scene where

they pulled out the body of a boy

decimated by a missile strike,

or by white phosphorous, I’m not sure

by what, but his corpse looked like

a burnt cookie. When I saw his

broken face, his caved-in chest,

I flinched like heat

was rushing my face from an oven door.

(Later, I’d isolate this scene,

run it through filters on loop

like ‘70s video art, psychedelic

pixelated abstractions.)

I thought she’d cry during the film,

but she didn’t. I bit my tongue

so I wouldn’t. She bit my lip.

She bit my thumb and I bit her thigh,

leaving teeth marks and trampled skin.

---

Edward Salem is the author of  Intifadas (Sarabande, 2026) and  Monk Fruit  (Nightboat, 2025). His work appears in  The Paris Review,  The Yale Review,  Granta,  BOMB, and elsewhere.