The house of empty eyes holds a heavy price.
Let me become a streak of mud.
God has left many humans undone.
Let faint footsteps linger in my uninhabited eyes.
The flavour of fire is a lamp.
And the flavour of sleep: man.
Pull me taut as a stone,
so my muteness remains unknown.
With God on my tongue,
I become a flower, then a thorn,
(then a flower, then a thorn).
Set the chains loose.
People tighten around their hands.
I have to die alone.
So these eyes, this heart—
give them to a hollow man.
Translator’s note
These translations are from Aankhein, which remains in circulation without a known literary estate or publisher actively enforcing copyright. While many renditions of her work exist in print, I was drawn to create versions that reflect the surrealism and fragmentation in her poetry through the use of breath and space, in keeping with the aesthetics of contemporary English-language poetry.
Sara Shagufta (1954–1984) was a Pakistani poet who wrote experimental, confessional, and political verse in Urdu and Punjabi. Born in the Punjabi city of Gujranwala, she spent most of her life in Karachi. Her posthumously published collection, Aankhein, cemented her reputation as one of the most original and overlooked voices in Urdu poetry.
Aiman Tahir Khan is a writer and editor from Lahore, Pakistan. She was selected as the inaugural Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate in English. Her work appears in Nimrod, Porter House Review, and Muzzle Magazine, among others. She currently serves as Associate Poetry Editor at Sontag Mag, mentors young Pakistani poets through Lakeer Magazine, and reads works in translation for The Adroit Journal.