Thanks

by Mosab Abu Toha

Thanks
After Yusef Komunyakaa

Thanks to my mother always, but
especially when she called for me,
for me to join them at the table,
just seconds before shrapnel
cut through the window glass
where I stood to watch distant air strikes.
My mother’s voice, the magnet of my life,
swayed my head just in time.
Plumes of smoke choked the neighborhood.
It was night and when we ran into the street,
and Mother had left the cake in the oven. We smelled
the bomb smoke with burnt chocolate
and strawberry of the cake.

And thanks to the huge clock tower
which saved my life. I was crossing the street}
and my head, glued to my phone,
never heeded the honk of cars
or the wheels of vans
screeching onto the rough tarmac.
That bell tolled for me.
Sorry Death, but it was the eve of my birthday
and sorry Hemingway to answer your title
that way.