'Both Sides of the Looking Glass,' a Poem by Adam Makary

A strike on Beirut lands in Cairo. It lands anywhere anyone is still listening.

Beirut’s Raouche neighborhood in a 1960s-era postcard.

For days, the drones had been flying low over Beirut. On our calls, their buzzing was constant, a sound that never left the conversation.

My friend Ghida and I spoke through all of it. Every few hours, I would check on her, trying to measure the danger outside in small increments. Are the drones closer today? Did you get to sleep? What is the news saying now?

Then, a little after two in the afternoon on April 8, the strikes began. We switched to video. From Ghida’s balcony, I watched plumes of smoke rise in almost every direction. The time between explosions was about the length of a breath. A hundred strikes in ten minutes, they said. Black Wednesday.

Her mother called, and we hung up. When Ghida rang back, she told me she would be staying home. She had been planning to go to her parents’ that day, a twenty-minute walk from her apartment. We talked a little longer.

Eventually exhaustion of the day’s terror pulled me under. I woke late…