Tasenda

Anonymous hands wove loathing into Soft pashmina shawls Embroidering them with phantom thumbs, With threads sourced from the Rags which had been tied At shrines of a thousand saints for The safe return of those who disappear Each weave, a paisley of memory Each knot, an unanswered prayer Each border, an unadorned tale softly woven to rest on delicate shoulders, So every winter night, when rich women in faraway lands, Hold themselves tighter in a garden party, a small part of us will breathe the free air of an alien land before we all disappear -- Tz

In my dreams,  sandwiched between forbidden loves And incestuous wars,  I dream of dispossession Of cold posters plastered over my home, Declaring me a fugitive of exile, Of rusted rifles guarding empty hearths waiting for new occupants,  who arrive in shuttered buses  holding papers  dipped in  cold black ink  confirming peace Of the old occupants,  all that remains are old books and  memories razed and blotted by pressed blood -- In time, I will be an Iberian Jew Cast-out and doomed to roam The earth, till one day when I Too shall cut open the last stitches holding Me together and drive others to exile They say when Azra’il comes For the sinner’s soul, he rips it apart Like Muslin drawn through a rose-thorn bush -- Let me bargain with death tonight And desecrate its oblivion To conjure a map of home From the memories of my ancestors From my grandfather, who died too young From his father, who sits turbaned