Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Damage
There’s an armless man on a hill
eating a candy bar and we wonder
which war, what factory machine.
Looks like his shoulder’s gone too.
Looks like the sky is a blue curtain
closing in on him. There’s a cloud
gliding into his rib. There’s his hand
rising to his mouth, teeth grinding
chocolate, the gift of sugar his lone
hand keeps delivering to his mouth.
Whatever happened, he’s moved on,
wakes, showers and buttons his shirt
by himself, his hand a swan pecking
down his chest. Wakes from a dream
where his missing arm flies into
his sleeve to pay his body a visit.
Wakes and buttons down and buys
a candy bar at the store. Damage
makes a notch on us all, with some
another notch. With some it steadies
the chisel and brings the hammer
down quick, brings a lesson on loss.
Blades take fingers. A tractor makes
a girl say goodbye to her footprints.
As for the armless man on the hill,
looks like the candy bar’s gone.
He looks like a sculpture, standing
up there with a hand on his waist:
a general waiting for the enemy,
hiding his saber behind his back.

David Hernandez’s most recent collection of poems, Hello I Must Be Going (Pitt Poetry Series, 2022), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. Hernandez teaches creative writing at California State University, Long Beach, and is married to writer Lisa Glatt. (updated 4/2025)