Abul Kalam Azad
Corpses and corpses
masked and undressed
Scabs covering body-sized wounds
Dogs feeding on swollen hearts
A tongue doused in petrol
A language of formless exile
Somewhere through the river
echoes of a phone call
Missed, the first time
The second time
a weak voice on the other end
stretched across time zones
‘this might be the last time
You will be seeing me’
A rabid moon shits a snake
with eyes plucked and fangs ripped
A burning forest gulps down
a diseased lung on life support
A freezing dog cuddles wet
an emptied tank of human breath
Snot-covered shores lament
eating into the red ocean
Turtles rip out their shells
stitch wings made of sand
And crash like meteors
into closing caskets
How does oxygen taste?
What does a heart attack cost?
Ketamine laced nights
choke on arid syllables
Grief drills through every dream
Memories scratch every crevice
Pus covered cocks weep in street corners
stabbing every nerve with stray syringes
Bodies fold themselves up
into tissues for a nation’s anus
Reams and reams
Tears and obits
Abul Kalam Azad is a poet, born in South India, based in Berlin. Her words have previously found shelter in various journals and anthologies like Saaranga: Telugu Literary Magazine, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Tokyo Poetry Journal, The Sunflower Collective, Raiot, Kindle Magazine, Muse India, Best Indian Poetry Anthology, and A Map Called Home Anthology.
Inter-Asian Berlin Anthology 