A DIVISION OF HEARTS

You speak of silences never sought

Except when uncertain; delicate pauses,

Mirror-mild, to say sorry. Sorry for what?

Being here tonight. For the Pakistani blood

That runs through my veins like a disease. It is a disease.

Your skin smells of tightened cords for sale

In heathen shops; you call it Lahore steam.

Memories drenched in the taste of salt paper and cloud

Unmoving, stock-still against a sky

Birthed only of winsome dreams. Of tell-tale beckonings

That bristle beneath the hiss of faceless fire.

I have seen it before, the revealing mark

Of a man who refuses to love what he loved as a child,

And yet does not forget. For such a man, after all,

My mother crossed the border, too.