Space and Space
Updated: Aug 11
Momina Mela
An enigmatic, brooding piece by Momina Mela, accompanied by artwork from Shanzay Subzwari. We recommend reading the poem on the desktop or using the desktop viewer option in your phone browser to visually experience the work as intended by the poet.
Planets clamped shut, the panthers are coming home.
It’s not what panthers do
but here she is anyway, tail afloat, kind of shy.
One of us raised the other as a cub—some membrane
touching some root, in truth they’re identical
shadows telling us they’re speechless.
All along an imprint like a ring around our plexus.
Gorging on the flat back of rectitude
where even honey tastes bitter, surprise surprise—
the goldsmiths and gold diggers are all out of jobs
Walkways stiffen from interference.
Hard to say if we need more shamans
or less but we’ll get on fine with our screwed up clockwork
roughing us up over nothing.
Come now, give us a chance to get our story straight.
Nighttime, lean stars—deals of civility as deals go.
A mound of bread in a high ceiling hall.
You couldn’t get your point across even if you tried.
Windows self-validate
here on our sacred ground begging to be tended to
before shuffling off. No footsteps to catch
only vanishing light, presumably.
All this to say we arrived with assumptions unavowed.
After one broke off, the rest followed, behaving badly
through the forest, no whip to crack when nothing chides—
besides, the clearing gives in marking rounds
for heaven and hell
a circle freshly alight is first and last, pouring coffee
in the sink, a spider crawls out—this is basically it.
Ever tipped over to swing back around
to find the immune dying to be forgotten?
Upon returning to earth everything dug up was buried again.
Momina Mela is a poet and writer from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, Prelude, Waxwing, diode and others.
Shanzay Subzwari is a visual artist, freelance writer, and art educator currently based in Karachi, Pakistan. She completed her BFA from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi in 2014, where she received a Distinction as well as the Academic Excellence in Fine Art award. Shanzay was selected as a British Chevening Scholar in 2019 and went on to pursue an MFA from the School of Art, Architecture, and Design at the London Metropolitan University, London, where she received a Distinction. She has exhibited in London, Venice, Turkey and Fribourg and been an Artist in Residence in Finland. Shanzay’s work has been acquired for the Hundal Collection at the South Asian Institute, Chicago and The Furqan Ahmed Collection, Pakistan.
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