Etiology
In a dream, I plucked
the feathers from my back.
The nightingale at dawn,
an omen. I never ate
the apricots piled on
my plate, never touched
meat while it was warm.
Milk curdled on a skillet,
the only war I waged.
Around me, petals de-
plumed from golden
shower trees. A colorless
film, untranslated, in
the background. Once,
the moon fell into my lap
but I could never gather it
with my bare hands.
Lizards with no tails
hid behind drapes. Rain
fell in and out of colors.
In the end, I never learnt.
I bathed each morning
in kerosene, stood still
in a house of matchsticks.
Daylight sifted through
the rooms, the same as
the soaked fields outside,
forgetting who survived.
Bird Watching In The City Of The Prophet
Before the day breaks
I bear witness, finger raised
upon my right knee.
Black scrub robins trill,
awakened by the muezzin’s
calling to prayer.
I no longer know
what to believe in—freedom
or feigned surrender.
From clay, I have tried
to sculpt doves, but shaped only
a slim pair of hands.
My prayer for what
has never appeared, feathers
falling to the ground.
And some days I have
felt so abandoned by this
world I’ve imagined
pouring mud over
my grave with my own fists. But
my Lord, He forbids
such resentment, as
He has prohibited my
hair before strangers,
claimed my voice awrah.
And I have disobeyed, longed
to be borne witness.
Desert finches alight
on arches of the masjid—
my hands, outstretched.
The Poet Says Imagine God As A Bladeless Knife With No Handle
He never entered me,
still I bled.
Aiman Tahir Khan is a writer and editor from Lahore, Pakistan. She was selected as the inaugural Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate in English, and her work can be found in Nimrod International Journal, Porter House Review, Muzzle Magazine, Shō Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She serves as Associate Poetry Editor at Sontag Mag, mentors young Pakistani poets through Lakeer Magazine, and reads works in translation for The Adroit Journal.