Kyla Pasha
This poem was first published in The Aleph Review, Vol. 1 (2017).
Might as well live in a desert where
you can feel the bones of the world,
where America is thinnest, translucent
and wan, where the land wears all her older names at once.
Might as well live without people, poor in your soul and heavy in your footfall. For a time anyway. So the land can say her names, become
people to you, and you can nestle in her bones, and bleach. Find your
colour again. Rise in all your languages.
Might as well wait for the tide.
Water is always good in the desert.
Kyla Pasha is a poet, journalist and occasional playwright based in Lahore. Her first collection of poetry, High Noon and the Body, was published by Yoda Press in 2010, in Delhi.