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Hasan Khan · · Poetry

Two brothers walked in the alleyway
the way I wish I could with you

My uncle asked: do you pray for America or Pakistan?
I said both, ashamed of my disbelief

Here faith is rain and I seek truth in the nuqta
In our chowk the smog chokes like time did when I put garlands in her hair or
the moment before a drone converts a village to an archaeology

Let me tell you a secret: the winter smog is riverwater
evaporating from the void of a zero point border
A conspiracy of the line against the nuqta
Today the mob was overheard saying: should the white rectangle be cut?
And you cried for the voiceless in a way that finds me years later
suspended out over an Atlantic ozone

I dont know where you really are
I only visit briefly, a thief giving alms
See the well was dug and they hit ink instead of water
but I looked closer and it was blood

I climbed deeper and there were checkpoints
architected into childhood, in the absence of baba or
before the time of Buddha

Years have been spent curating this archaeology
crumbling before a gaze that deems them counterfeit

This is your captain speaking: Its 42 degrees centigrade outside
and welcome back to the sunrise
Our encounters are a palimpsest and
I begin to unpack language from the suitcase