Tabish Khair Poems

At one instant it seemed to be within my grasp:
Your love was a jewel I could reach out and feel.
It made me come alive as nothing had before;
I felt no need to keep it in a selfish clasp.
...

Down the stairs of this house where plaster flakes and falls,
Through the intimate emptiness of its rooms and hall,
I hear your slow footsteps, grandmother, echo or pause
...

Listen to the song of the reed flute:
It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
Banks of the pond,
...

Grant me a little child
I can hide
When the mullahs come home to pray,
When planes are birds of prey.
...

She knows it's neither strange nor hard
To raise children on graveyards.
...

It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants, the wobble of vowels.
...

ecause the east wind bears the semen smell of rain,
A warm smell like that of shawls worn by young women
Over a long journey of sea, plain and mountains,
The peacock spreads the Japanese fan of its tail and dances,
...

What could I do being what I was:
Saviour of old women, their killer too.
On my chest there sat a big dog;
...

(Based on H. C. Andersen's ‘The Little Mermaid')
It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants, the wobble of vowels.

And you for whom I gave up a kingdom
Can never love that thing I was.

When you look into my past
You see
Only
Weeds and scales.

Once I had a voice.
Now I have legs.

Sometimes I wonder
Was it fair trade?
...

(Based on H. C. Andersen's ‘By the Almshouse Window')
She knows it's neither strange nor hard
To raise children on graveyards.

All you need
Is a terrible deed -
Then you bury the dead,
And forget.
...