Must We Always Fight?

The portrait you painted

was of a wounded man,

his emaciated face, with cropped hair

stared at me

for weeks.

The figure is standing straight

facing me

but I walked away

with an image of a bent man;

he was not broken

but the dark, grayish

red that has become

your signature of late

haunts the canvass

like a shroud.

The marks on his body

seemed like gashes,

they were long and vertical,

and deliberate.

The scene reminded me

of a Fairuz song;

something about the eyes of a woman

being mightier than the sword.

And I wondered why

he was cut

every time you looked at him.

Strange that you could only

talk of the Giacometti feet;

how determined

and grounded they were...

I saw them tired,

naked and cold.

It would have been a beautiful picture,

if it wasn't for the pain.