The scene is set;
there’s the boy,
a jacket around his waist,
running to what he believes
is a portal to heaven;
there are the lives
about to fade.
I will say their names out loud
for no stone will.
I will say their names out slowly
for no page will.
In a flash,
only splinters will remain.
I wish upon no one
the curse of my sight,
with no veils for pause
between knowing and not knowing,
no rest between innocence and its loss.
Through your viewfinder,
you see a scene in a pre-set frame,
trapped in the prison of a moment.
You see men fall and marble stand tall.
I see these lands across
a continuum of time.
You see the victory of one,
the fall of another.
From where I see,
this will all turn to rubble,
a breed of new strangers
inhabiting it for a wink
at the next round of play.
You see the raw pink of charred flesh,
I see, already, the dew of rose petals
soothing the souls of martyrs.
Naima Rashid is an author, poet, and translator who works between Urdu, Punjabi, French and English. Her work has been long-listed for National Poetry Competition and Best Small Fictions. Her published translations include critically acclaimed translations of works by Ali Akbar Natiq (Naulakhi Kothi, Penguin India, 2023) and Perveen Shakir (Defiance of the Rose, Oxford University Press, 2019) and a joint translation from French (Chicanes, Les Fugitives, 2023). Her most recent work is a poetry collection, Sum of Worlds (Yoda Press, 2024). Her work and views have been widely published internationally including in Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham, The Scores and Asymptote. She has taught translation with Shadow Heroes, Bristol Translates and Oxford Translates, among others. At present, she is working on her own fiction and another series of translations.