Ingrid Hughes was born in London in 1945. She grew up in Greece, Saigon, and Singapore, as well as the United States. Since she was twenty she has lived in New York, where she brought up two children and now teaches English to immigrants and native New Yorkers at the City University of New York. Her poems and stories have appeared in magazines like Lilith, West Branch, and the Massachusetts Review.

Ingrid Hughes

Nour Bayyoumi

Nour Bayyoumi
is the name of a Palestinian girl who died
at the hands of the Israelis. That's all I know.
At the protest against the Israeli assault
on Gaza someone puts her name,
printed large, into my hands.
I hold it up. We are far from the desert of Gaza,
where bombs crush buildings and people.
Aging leftists and Palestinians in black, chanting
against Israel's attack, we stand safely in Times Square,
packed into two lanes as the traffic roars by.
Nour slips to the asphalt
and I bend down among the legs
to snatch her up before any one can step on her.

Does her family live to mourn her? Did they
all die together? Even so there must be
aunts and cousins who miss Nour, who miss
them all, as they live on in their shattered world.

Listen to her name again.
Nour Bayyoumi. Say it aloud.
You must help me.
She is ours now.
We must remember her.