Published in Kafla Intercontinental, Summer 2015, Vol. XXII, Number 1 & 2

 ONE SUMMER EVENING

Together,
we sat. Silence masked the words.
The coffee table in the center,
cupped the stillness between
its legs; it contained the frantic quality
buzzing around in the air
that one summer evening.
Through the periphery,
I remembered to look at the sun,
setting;
its glow fading
quietly, stunned into sadness,
unable to
drop through the clutter of
human words, unspoken,
splattered all around,
as it witnessed
two people suspended from
each other, who could not reach
through the knot of
history and about to
unfurl, like flags seeking freedom
from the cloth
that had sealed their fate
into permanence.

Published in South Asian Ensemble, Winter & Spring 2015

SEARCHING FOR MOONLIGHT

In searching for stars, I only find dust
soaked, with the blood of ancestors
some sleeping, some still breathing
glistening under the soft spell of the moonlight.
I wonder—
maybe there are no stars,
just the bright red particles of history
masked in the deception of the moonlit night.

PIECED TOGETHER

One plane ticket to Boston.
searching for itself in a pile of papers.
Two lines of an unfinished ghazal
written hastily on a piece of soggy napkin
dipped in ancestral miseries,
and another two, struggling to be seen
through the fog in the corridor.
Majnu is oddly relieved at Laila’s departure.
Orange, maroon, green on the silky dupatta
reach out to each other in a frenzy,
while the scarf still talks of the Wall in Beijing.
At a distance, waits Henry watching the Queen
slowly fade into the blinding light of the Rising Sun.
And, then Route 1? It has no choice
but to surrender to the onslaught of tires
pounding on its chest.
The blue stripes on the white sleeve finally
washed of the sins from the night before.
Sitting still is Faiz, yearning to fall asleep
in night’s tight embrace.
And of course, the watch—
it sits dead on the dresser holding onto time.
One plane ticket to Boston
searching for itself in a pile of papers.