Poetry

Kandukuru Naharjun photo

By

Shadab Zeest Hashmi

Eyeglasses resting on the Tempest

Or Gabriel’s Wing beside a saucer of mulberries

Urdu newspaper quartered

a wasp I believe stung me once

dizzying itself in the tea cozy’s mirrorwork

flickering, golden with crimes

I cannot sting

it back but this is my verandah and everything here has my eyes

even the ruddy brick-wall with its army of cats

even the strainer of slushy tealeaves

When Naani Jaan leans back

and shuts her eyes

I know there were fresh

graves in the news from Kashmir today

We are here on the map

of forbidding

where new wounds press into old names

I’m playing with her eyeglasses

Stretching her shawl to make a refugee tent

Asking for the story of Yusuf’s release from the pharaoh’s prison

She speaks first of how a father went blind

weeping for his child

No swaddle of true dreams, no return home in her story

but a waterless well and forever empty arms

Shadab Zeest Hashmi