Whispers of the desert
poem by Fatima Bhutto
Excerpts:
poem by Fatima Bhutto
Excerpts:
Karachi air
Breathed in through the lungs
Is sickly sweet
Like honeycomb left out to rot
In the warm, unrepentant heat.
Or else,
It is thick, smoky
Like mesquite
The evening scent of garbarge burning
At the first break of dusk’s early light.
Mynah birds and ravens caw
A jealous chord
Singing to the street.
At midnight
I can hear the poor sweeper man
Sweep sweeping
The moonlit littered roads.
I sleep in bed
Covered in a sheet of sweat.
There is no electricity now
In this deadened August night
I trawl
Middle Eastern airlines, terminals and luggage belts
Stuck alongside students,
Honeymooners in black robes and white thobes
And slave labour, working through the night.
Hiding my name on my boarding passes,
A thumb obscuring the sight of letters, destinations and foreign nights
And inventing new fictions,
Identities
And family trees.
My legs are close to clotting
And my bags unnecessarily heavy.
Qatar, Etihad and Emirates
I count them off as lovers
I use in desperate times of need.,
Flying out every month
Pretending that I’m free,
Subsisting on airline meals.
Parting from Karachi
At departure gates
And onwards worldwide.
I wish it well
My love unkind.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Breathed in through the lungs
Is sickly sweet
Like honeycomb left out to rot
In the warm, unrepentant heat.
Or else,
It is thick, smoky
Like mesquite
The evening scent of garbarge burning
At the first break of dusk’s early light.
Mynah birds and ravens caw
A jealous chord
Singing to the street.
At midnight
I can hear the poor sweeper man
Sweep sweeping
The moonlit littered roads.
I sleep in bed
Covered in a sheet of sweat.
There is no electricity now
In this deadened August night
I trawl
Middle Eastern airlines, terminals and luggage belts
Stuck alongside students,
Honeymooners in black robes and white thobes
And slave labour, working through the night.
Hiding my name on my boarding passes,
A thumb obscuring the sight of letters, destinations and foreign nights
And inventing new fictions,
Identities
And family trees.
My legs are close to clotting
And my bags unnecessarily heavy.
Qatar, Etihad and Emirates
I count them off as lovers
I use in desperate times of need.,
Flying out every month
Pretending that I’m free,
Subsisting on airline meals.
Parting from Karachi
At departure gates
And onwards worldwide.
I wish it well
My love unkind.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
