July 31, 2026

Two Poems

by Rasha Abdulhadi

Rasha Abdulhadi writes through the accumulation of everyday catastrophes in poems is Palestine and Table of Contents for a Manual of Pandemic Response Protocols. Originally published in Mizna 21.1: Queer and Trans Voices and Mizna 17.2: The Environment Issue respectively and now republished together, Abdulhadi’s poems draw attention to the interconnectedness of disability justice and Palestinian liberation.

This Mizna Online-exclusive retrospective is reprinted here as part of the Disability Folio.

—Kate Bestall, editorial intern

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I read Palestine
when the news says Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq.
I step around the bodies

—Rasha Abdulhadi

Table of Contents for a Manual of Pandemic Response Protocols

How to write a pandemic response protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to lead in a time of global crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to find your purpose in a hurricane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What to do when your depression meets the Great Depression. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to turn your complex PTSD into a leadership development program. . . . . .
How to be compassionate in the face of mortal terror. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to explain to everyone you know that things are Very Bad. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to explain to everyone you know that things are Even Worse. . . . . . . . . . . .
How to explain to everyone you know that things are Much Worse
Than We Can Imagine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to imagine beyond your imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to imagine total catastrophe and stay loving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to decide in a time of complete uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to stop worrying and learn to love the crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to stop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to find that your fury has no bottom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to say everything you notice and feel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to stop swallowing your insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to find your pandemic joy¹ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to keep yourself and others alive in America². . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to keep yourself and others alive in Palestine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How others keep you alive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to turn desolation into liberation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to take escalation as opportunity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to renew your rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to be careful, very careful, more careful than you’ve ever been . . . . . . . . .
How to feel the domino of your somatic body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How to suspend the risk of your first and last true life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Between Two Screens

everywhere: in every
arrest of a Black man, woman, or child in Atlanta,
in every
neighborhood of DC plowed under as people
from the nations of the earth move here, in every
stolen public dollar belonging to the people of
Detroit, in every
drop of water from the Diné nation used to pump
the coal slush that lights up Las Vegas, in every
deportation detention center, at every checkpoint
and traffic stop, in all
the land that disappears from beneath the feet
of farmers in Chicago, in rural Illinois, in
the streets of Baltimore where young people held
rocks against riot gear and rubberslicked bullets,
in all
the young Americans who go off to fight wrapped
in uniforms and come back wrapped in flags

I read Palestine
when the news says Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq.
I step around the bodies
as I cross train platforms and count them
on the walk to work. Baba, you said
wherever you lived was your home, that there was
no such thing as where you came from. But Baba,
your home followed you everywhere
the hands that pushed you out of
olive groves and orange orchards have
been pushing at the corners
of every place I’ve ever lived and
these days it starts to seem that I can’t
call anywhere home until I can
find the place called where you come from.

1. Darakshan Raja, 2020 ↩︎
2. Kiese Laymon, 2012 ↩︎

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