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A Lebanese-American poet, translator, scholar, and activist, Philip Metres (he/him) is the author and translator of eleven books and chapbooks, including Shrapnel Maps, The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (University of Michigan 2018), finalist for Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism; Pictures at an Exhibition (University of Akron 2016), winner of the Akron Poetry Prize; and Sand Opera (Alice James 2015). His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, numerous journals and anthologies, and has garnered a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, a Lannan Fellowship, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, six Ohio Arts Council Grants, three Arab American Book Awards among many other fellowships and awards. A professor of English, he is the director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Program at John Carroll University in Cleveland.

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The Other Side

In the First World Peace, Uncle Charlie found his mind 

outside a country asylum, wound home to meet the sister

who always knew he’d survived. Uncle Dom always spoke 

of the Second World Peace, how he once gave away

a Purple Heart, which never reminded him of anything. 

And the marchers marched backward, never showing

their backs, unlocked and unloaded every rifle they carried, 

breaking ranks in every direction. And the smoke and ash

turned back into bone-clothed skin. In Saigon, my father saw 

fireworks, wondered when peace would end. If only we trimmed

our peace budget, the President says, we might have something 

to spend on the latest bionic technology, to erase the scars

of peace, since men keep sprouting limbs, and their shrapnel-

free faces have a symmetry you only see in times like these.

A Map of Migration Routes

Each line is arrowed red. 

Inside, they tumble

across muscled continents

like erythrocytes, millions

of flesh-tucked skulls hauling 

dreams. Red for departure,

blue for return. Their lives 

shrunk to a single cell 

they palm to their chest

in bus depots and windowless tents 

at night, seeking a signal,

a recognizable voice, someone

home, lithium ions draining. 

When given paper and crayons, 

their children draw weapons.

Red for departure, blue

for return. Like veins, the lines 

draw back to the heart, the heart

where the rivers flooded, 

the fields baked in drought, 

where the guns came out—

and guns made love to guns, 

making more guns,

and the blood began to run.