The winter mist is rolling in Tracing umbras and penumbras On liquid walls conjuring Illusions of nostalgic things Like tapestries of sunny hills And shadowlands where valleys stretch Into soft concaves Of velvety days shimmering At their edges, glimmering In the halos of lit up orbs Glittering, pulsating Watching and observing all Like eager sentries making sure The invading mist Covets no more Than the silver kiss That it bestows On each doorway As it tiptoes In and then away Into the darkness further along All the while As it glides Whispering its vapory song.
The streets cook in the yeasty sun The concrete melting in little mirages In the corner of my eye, I see The vegetation sizzle on the sidewalks The tops are over-done, burnt The undersides stick to the earth In a grotesque masquerade Of some now forgotten vital bond Roots and soil cling together Like dogged carcasses to the bone The street dogs lie half dead Parched tongues loll out now and then A sluggish scrape against the grit And they escape Back into the desert caverns of their mouths I pick my way along the street Shimmer-sharpened by the heat I feel it reach Hellish fingers through my soles Heat-divining for my soul I hurry on but Hades’ torrid lick Is already on my swollen lips His hoary sizzle has found its mark My tar-seared feet slow to a crawl My essence drips out in burns Upon oil-scorched temples and brows Down my thighs and my neck I cannot move another step I sit on a steaming bench To drench the rest of me In the quenchless, wrenching sun.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 