Lahore Nocturne

                       after Tarfia Faizullah

Here, by this tide of waste that
ribbons black across empty fields,
                parched grass a girl gnaws
and fills in a straw sack. Here, 

deep in my own body beating
with the stop, stop, stop,
                of the commando’s thrusting
gun – here, in this hue of dawn

slung outside the fruit shack,
acknowledge loss:
                this bracelet of jasmine
a boy twirls on a broken arm, 

this knot of ribbon a crow peels
from a pole in the shrine. This junk
                I carry with me and a clipping
on drowned girls in the local paper. 

City of ash, I return to you,
where time widens and thins,
                where time, a sickness,
issues one day after another. 

Teach me how to come back whole.
Give me a name for the surge
                at the sight of every
broken thing. Let me return

to the settling ghost of your river,
its spirit of relinquishment. Let me
                return to you, this ache
at the center of the world.