Sunday in the West Bank
by Emily Davis-Fletcher
Was Sunday saved? I ask the moon.
Nearly a year since I read that charity’s plea
for emergency funds. Has his weight doubled?
His tawny fur grown thick and long to swallow
a hand in that gentle meadow
of his back? Was he reunited with his mother who brayed
and brayed, a donkey prayer, for her baby to return?
Do they, now, walk a rocky path together under stars,
as Sunday carries a pregnant woman to where
his warm, steady breath will keep the future sleeping
peacefully? Moon, what happened
to the twelve-year-old who used her body
to shield Sunday, taking blows from children
who beat him with the sticks and stones of
their hands and feet? Both bleeding,
she ran with him limp in her arms. Was she
rewarded with red roller skates? Does she glide
figure eights ‘round her home, infinity
‘round her family? Was the only blood she wore
the rest of the year a trickle
from her skinned knee? The wound healing in a week if
she did not pick the scab, the way I could not resist
as a child? Remember me at nine? I wanted
to kill the days too, especially Sunday, when my stepfather
would yank me from the sofa like a dandelion, smack
my face for saying something only his deaf
ear could hear. Once, I followed a ditch of Queen Anne’s
lace to Big Creek, caught minnows, as wet and slick as
my tears, then slit them open with rocks.
Moon, did you see cruel children in bold letters,
congealed above ongoing conflict
in that charity appeal? I wanted to reply,
the cruelest children are dead children. Why
when I have no tears left, do minnows swim down my cheeks?
Those girls and boys heard their own brays for mama, for
mercy, unanswered. Ripped the half hearts
of their own ears. Shattered
themselves in the tender mirrors of Sunday’s eyes.
Emily Davis-Fletcher is a writer and educator. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University, her MA in Women's Studies from the National University of Ireland Galway, and her BFA in Creative Writing from Stephens College. Her poetry has been published in Tinderbox, Crannóg Magazine, the Irish Examiner, and The High Window, among other journals and anthologies. She has taught poetry workshops at elementary schools, assisted living communities, and domestic violence shelters, as well as at the Pat Conroy Literary Center and Stephens College. In 2025, she won the Starkey Flythe Jr. Memorial Prize in Poetry and the Oliver Bowman Award in Poetry. Most recently, she won the Tom Howard Poetry Contest 2025 and the 2026 Foley Prize. If you are looking for a writing mentor or editor, you may email Emily at emilydfj@gmail.com to learn how she can help.