A strike! A strike!<\/p>\n
It comes from so far out.
\nFrom so impossibly
\nfar away.<\/p>\n
A thunderous shot.
\nThe boy. The boy.<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal,<\/p>\n
the Spanish kid,<\/p>\n
the youngest
\never to score<\/p>\n
at the UEFA,
\nthe Euro Cup.<\/p>\n
Everyone
\nerupts.<\/p>\n
There is screaming.
\nHoliness.<\/p>\n
His magical foot.<\/p>\n
They advance.<\/p>\n
July 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
From the United States,
\nanother shot,<\/p>\n
the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n
The ball.<\/p>\n
Its course is altered
\nimperceptibly.<\/p>\n
The keeper
\nfalls.<\/p>\n
Messi,
\nthe greatest on earth.<\/p>\n
His steps.
\nHis magical foot.<\/p>\n
In the Copa Am\u00e9rica,
\nin the stadium
\nin the Meadowlands,
\nten miles from Manhattan.<\/p>\n
They are screaming,
\nwaving<\/p>\n
blue and white.<\/p>\n
They advance.<\/p>\n
July 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
In the al-Awda schoolyard, many eyes
\nseek the same things.<\/p>\n
Those moments, imperceptible
\nand vanishing,
\nwhere all else seems to fall away.<\/p>\n
Nothing else exists.<\/p>\n
False, flimsy, fleeting refuge
\nagainst horror.<\/p>\n
Against, for a flash,
\neven genocide.<\/p>\n
Even soccer is among the infrastructures
\nof existence.<\/p>\n
Like holiness.<\/p>\n
No.
\nIt\u2019s more complicated than that.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
July 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
In the al-Awda schoolyard, the keeper,
\nthe boy,
\ntakes possession of the ball from beyond
\nthe goaline.
\nHe hurls it downfield, toward a teammate
\nby the opponents\u2019
\ngoal.
\nThe boys\u2019 eyes follow it.<\/p>\n
The boys.
\nMost of them younger than the players,
\nsome sitting barefoot and shirtless.<\/p>\n
Their souls follow it.<\/p>\n
Even the youngest.<\/p>\n
But before the ball<\/p>\n
hits the earth, something else
\nstrikes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the end of the world.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the end
\nof the world.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
July 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
Where did it land?<\/p>\n
The ball.<\/p>\n
Perhaps not in one piece.<\/p>\n
Exploded and scattered, pieces clinging
\nto bits of stitching<\/p>\n
like flesh
\nto bone.<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
You have no idea what you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s more complicated than that.<\/p>\n
The IDF is reviewing reports
\nof whether
\ncivilians were harmed<\/p>\n
or not.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
In the al-Awda schoolyard.<\/p>\n
There are sounds of children<\/p>\n
dying.<\/p>\n
In what was once
\nthe al-Awda schoolyard,
\nin Abasan al-Kabira,
\neast of Khan Younis,<\/p>\n
what were once children
\nwill never again<\/p>\n
touch the earth
\nin Gaza<\/p>\n
with their steps.<\/p>\n
Only
\nhere and there,
\na foot
\nthat once struck a ball.<\/p>\n
A magical foot.<\/p>\n
From the United States,
\npieces of intelligence
\nbreed pieces
\nof intelligence breed pieces
\nof children.<\/p>\n
A universe, suspended in mid-air,<\/p>\n
or not.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
What was once a soccer ball.<\/p>\n
What were once children
\nwhose eyes,
\nfor a moment,<\/p>\n
once followed the flight of a soccer ball.<\/p>\n
For a moment, imperceptible
\nand vanishing,
\nit was everything,<\/p>\n
and everyone.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s more complicated than that.<\/p>\n
What was once
\nholiness.
\nVanishing.<\/p>\n
How old?<\/p>\n
Children.<\/p>\n
Sixteen years old?<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
The souls of children suspended
\nlike the throw of the ball.<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
Even younger.
\nEven the youngest.<\/p>\n
How many were screaming?<\/p>\n
Their feet hit the earth.<\/p>\n
Their steps are gone.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the ball hit the earth
\nin pieces.
\nBut never again
\nin play.<\/p>\n
The fate of the children.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps it just rolled away.<\/p>\n
Everyone
\nerupts.<\/p>\n
How many knew Messi\u2019s name?<\/p>\n
The keeper
\nfalls.<\/p>\n
How many screamed?<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
The youngest.<\/p>\n
Even the video is buried under the rubble,
\nburied from memory
\nunder the rubble
\nof massacres
\nthat followed.<\/p>\n
The eyes of children
\nfollowing, the flight of the ball
\nbefore the strike,<\/p>\n
the end of the world.<\/p>\n
Where did it land?<\/p>\n
The ball.<\/p>\n
They advance.
\nThere is nowhere to go,
\nnowhere safe.<\/p>\n
They are caught in a net.
\nBlue and white.<\/p>\n
The ball.<\/p>\n
Caught in the net.<\/p>\n
They are screaming.<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
July 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
Nothing else exists.<\/p>\n
There is screaming
\nof something beyond grief.<\/p>\n
Suspended, sometimes,
\nin mid-air.<\/p>\n
By the mothers in whose wombs
\nthose bones grew intact.
\nWholeness.<\/p>\n
A magical foot.<\/p>\n
Where did it land?<\/p>\n
The sounds of children<\/p>\n
dying.<\/p>\n
Did you know
\nthe mothers grew each of those organs
\nin the womb?<\/p>\n
And they never saw them,
\nthey never got to see them,<\/p>\n
until now.<\/p>\n
They never got to see them.<\/p>\n
They never get to see them.<\/p>\n
Again.<\/p>\n
Messi.<\/p>\n
Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n
Mothers who grew those bones they never
\nsaw until this moment.
\nThe end of the world.<\/p>\n
The game ends
\nas holiness<\/p>\n
does.<\/p>\n
The end of the world.<\/p>\n