Fifteen Shabaan

They form furrows tonight,

Through fractures of light

All these supplicants,

All these little eddies

Of hope and hesitation,

Crumpled little cocoons,

Hold-outs against the desolation

And yet, I’m run in to my rut.

All of us palms up and yet

I’m stunted in my song.

What now Saqi? They say

This night is line on line of love

Prayer pushing prayer

And yet, hands in my hair

I’m echoing the dull beat

Of nerves shot and fear sore

And yet, though I see her

Seventy and soaring with you

I hang behind, locked in form

Snagged by scraggs of circumstance

Rolling the possibilities in my mind

Where the should-haves and

The could-haves hurl themselves

At the walls like rocks in a tin.

So what now Saqi? The days come

Where the hang dog hunts

And howls in the holes

In our treasonous heart

And the back sways, then gives

Under the multiplicity of it all.

They say this night, the tide is strong

And it moves the universe.

So let it pull Saqi, for I am on the ebb

And know not if I can flow.

By

Ali.A.Naqvi