Sounding Out
1
At this odd, unusual hour
Someone, somewhere, starts to yell,
And green foxes invade the voice.
I know my mother downstairs
Has heard it, too, and is asking
My father if there’s a siege.
2
To west of my nose, the heavy quilt
Smells of freshly healed skin,
Now slipping towards the blanket.
This is no time to strike
Far away kept gold matchstick,
For faces visible can be sold.
3
Under my head, the brown pillow
Beats like the mad heart,
Pumping warmth down my neck.
At dawn, rumours from everyone’s
Lips will fall, like rains,
Claiming the country of furtive stares.
They Sleep, As I Write This
1
Beneath the surface, of wounded speech
Words fall, like black snow,
On serpents of sealed tongue.
A crowd of misled, giant mosquitos
Enters the land of fluttering eyelashes,
Washing away rumours of sleep.
Bitten breaths, with lasting teethmarks
Hide inside burned nostrils,
Somehow evading air’s informer.
2
I can’t promise. I’m not a detective.
O assassin’s children tell me
What do your father’s hands smell like?
Do you ask him, how his day went
At work, or that did he have his
Lunch after plunging knife?
If I could, I’d rub a sword
On this head, my painful country.
I’m still alive should astonish you.
Dr. Owais Farooq is an Independent Scholar from Kashmir currently based in Delhi. He holds a PhD on the poems of Agha Shahid Ali from the English Department, University of Delhi. His most recent poems have appeared in Borderless and Parcham.