by Saba Zahoor
Anatomy of the Border
Ants won’t cross lines
drawn in chalk or pen,
lines that erase the scent of home.
They stall, wander in circles,
lobotomized by lines.
Men learn early to read between the lines,
cutting cartographic wounds
to practice sutures;
rivers clot, mountains comply.
The unsteady old hands
master the art of dividing lines,
the art of folding paper into borders –
tendons tightening under duress.
The land flinches like a brain,
with the muscle memory of belonging.
The border never heals – it persists,
cauterizing old injuries
with embassy seals,
treating sepsis with checkpoints.
Trees root on one side, branch on the other,
refusing to choose;
The trail thins
between what was once home
and what remains –
a skin
left behind.
Emissaries from the Hills
Lately, there have been sightings of leopards and bears
in my hometown. Something always seems to descend
upon the cerulean city from the hills —troops, worries,
the brontide of war ossifying old men
into petrified wood. They still remember their fallen sons.
The faithful wait for the second coming
of the disappeared. The rest of us drift
down our own stripped declivities. I forget
the woebegone face of my birthplace, her tales
whispered during power cuts, and she, in time
returns the favor. She sends her emissaries,
bears and leopards, who accuse me
of encroaching upon myself,
whittling away at my own edges
through thoughtless subversions.
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Saba Zahoor is an engineer, born in Kashmir and currently living in Saudi Arabia. She is a self-styled peasant poet who views poetry as a portal to alternate realities.