By Shadab Zeest Hashmi
From my home window
Prussian blue
Mazda’s window
broken glass blue
my school’s window
carbon-paper blue
Mountains
circled my life like a spell
in blue
At Tor Khum
they were touching distance
Was it charcoal or chalk or rope
that marked the border?
Afghanistan was just beyond a slim crease of blue
Before being warned by the guards
I had moved my foot across
To step into what would later become ash blue
The guards made me step back
gave me a water-melon
I was only a child under the spell of mountains
Out of which I would later see
refugees flow
River blue Bruise blue
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.
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