SARAH AZIZ
cw – references to Islamophobia, animal death, and physical violence
to the campus cat who curls in my lap every afternoon
the ghosts were of smoked blue
glass, chipping away at my
enamel like a layer of fluffy white
rice masking small-boned pebbles.
Like a child on Eid, I licked clean
the saffron and the cashew-nut
-spangled kheer, too young to spell
my name, forewritten on the margins
of tomorrow’s newspaper: Communal
Riot in XYZ. Four Killed.
More like three-and-a-half, you said.
“Or four, yes, if you count me.”
Now, every morning, you bring me
flowers.
Sarah Aziz is a poet, journalist, translator and illustrator based in Kolkata, India. She is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English Literature at Loreto College, University of Calcutta. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Voice of America, Mantis (a Journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation housed at Stanford University) and Sky Island Journal, among others.