Stepping Across the Border

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.