“Never trust a man, Hina. They’re all scum.” I was nine years old when my mother first said this to me. She had failed yet again to secure a divorce from my father in Pakistan—her second attempt at doing so. The first time she tried, I was five and remember the day we came back
The sea gives back all it takes, you had told me once, as we stood on a large boulder, looking out into the twilight sea. It was our favourite spot, our boulder – a slate grey, oval piece of the ancient rocks, smoothed to perfection by centuries of weathering. I was sixteen and naïve. As
Alone I stand in a dark graveyard Bodies lay still but there are no souls I walk alone without my heart Can’t fill these empty wormholes How can anyone say she didn’t matter She was everything to me Selling their soul is what they’d rather Married into a portal to hell on earth I’m born
At seven a.m. the trees at this park make a green horizon like a fence whose slats are neither warped or out of place. It is the only green part of the day. Lawns are brown, their grass as dead as brooms. It’s October and the trees still have leaves. We are in need of
It’s a short drive to the park. Winter has made a whimsical return as if to poke fun at Spring. Snow powdered trees appear to float in rainwater lagoons. I throw my daydreams into placid pools and wish for sunlight. In the foreground, flakes fall, melting instantly on a glass stage. In the distance, they
With a fleeting first glance, I walked past you standing along the path, instead giving more attention to my footing and my morning conversation. But something about your weathered features struck me. I knew I needed to see more of you. So, I turned around. Retraced my steps. Approached you, reverently. Raised my camera ready.
–After W.S. Merwin The Yellowlegs skims the surface of the creek. Polished by first light, the water frees its liminal soul from a veil of mist. It flies wing tip-to-wing tip with its self. The Sandhill crane cranks its voice. Ratchets its call to others standing tall among the reeds, their long necks just visible
shorebirds slicing the dawn into tatters. you found me without a tether. drifting in that endless blue, sans anchor, sans moor. I was a drenched and drowning thing until you, like Jove in the guise of an eagle, lifted me to higher realms. if I were a moon in your eyes, if there was mercy
Poured what remained of his dreams Into a cereal bowl – Well, it was actually a McDonald’s cup But it served the same function. Figured if he could eat it He could go on living it too Digesting it square by square, Calorie by calorie. Except it had lost its taste Or rather he’d lost
She spreads her wings, the luna moth, sea-foam green lit-through by the sinking sun on that evening on the path below the willow. You take my hand, your thumb stroking my palm to the slow beat of her wings. Her fuzzy antennae flutter in the evening air. Almost newborn, her wings, almost dry. Soon she