Fatima Shahid
Image by Cotton Bro from Pexels
Fatima Shahid is a Pakistani-American writer with work appearing or upcoming in the Augment Review, Paper Crane Journal, and others.
In Jhelum
Baba teaches me
to crave the sickly, cloying air
of Punjabi countryside.
In a coat of dew and sweat,
arms flared on woven bedstead,
baby hairs abscond my braid,
stick—damp and prickly—
against my suntanned neck.
The weather forecast reads smoke.
I can no longer breathe.
There are ants climbing panicum,
and I am dealing a bruised hand,
gambling with life
on a fenceless dirt bridge—
where the children are playing
their adroit village games,
cheerful, barefoot.
I dip my hands into freezing,
dirty river water;
ask if there are worse things to learn.
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