Poet Into Ostrich
I hack my way through three layers of fog
Dense as velvet, to scrawl
Quivering, quisling verse,
Trite, shallow as a rain-puddle. Each cog
In my poem-machine, small
And large, bears the hearse
Of a truth upon its spokes. War. Hunger.
Crushed protest. I whisper:
Peas, you could make a forest
Out of sand. Instead, you are my dinner.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer and photographer from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Penine Platform, Rust and Moth, Think Journal, The Font, The Raven's Muse Magazine, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.