Ghazal
for the Girl in the Photo
Stanza 1:
You became the girl with the
piercing eyes when you found your country swiped by a stranger
In Kabul snow, a missile
turned your mother onto coal; your last tears were wiped by a stranger.
Stanza 2:
A garden once hung from your
name like the perfume of wild apple blossoms phantom tulips
In the refugee camp, are you
Sharbat Gula, liquor of flowers, or a number typed by a stranger?
Stanza 3:
Your eyes teach cold flint
ignites a flare, how a father’s bones become an orphan’s roof
History writes itself clear
as cornea, your green glare---- no whitewashing, no hype is stranger.
Stanza 4:
Pity the empire that failed
to decipher the disdain in your eyes, the hard stare of war
Pity the first world’s pity,
the promise of friends who show up as every type of stranger.
Stanza 5:
Zeest, return to the arms of
memory, the riddle of its minefields, velvet lullabies
To the lilt of this land,
its lyrical storms, its bells and bagpipes, you’re no stranger
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