Coloring the Border

By Shadab Zeest Hashmi

They stood in cleanest sunlight,
the mountains,
their lines so cold
there wasn’t a color for them in my pencil box.

I let the sharp breeze cut out
emerald for a heart
with a pushto beat,
a tribe lost and hanging by the star of David,
a language blue and gold-veined like lapis,
I drew war cries of the Greeks
in plume-red,
the Mongols in horse-leather red.

It was 1979,
history looping
like a bomb circuit,
feeding on itself,
while the black curve of Tor Khum,
a trail of loss,
sang in war-tongues,
a lament drained of all color.

When I left,
I left for long and with
my pencil box.


Note: Tor Khum or The Black Curve is a small town on the northwestern border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi is the author of Baker of Tarifa, a book of poems based on Medieval Spain where the three Abrahamic faiths shared a golden age. Hashmi's work has been published in Nimrod International, The Cortland Review, Journal of Postcolonial Writings, and other places. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her book won the 2011 San Diego Book Award.