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For Wagah On Sunday*

by Sabrina Ghaus

Sabrina-Ghaus-poem-image

1.
opening a crater on a faultline
could never stop the earthquake.
was Partition not enough?
was this body only yours
that you could hurt it like this?

2.
can a wound heal in the sound
of destruction?
have you ever healed that way?
has your mother?
send me your answer, weeping.

3.
white is the color of death
you have forgotten. who
is your leader? colonial
master. renewed.

4.

the screams
the screams
the screams

5.
history repeats. death, over and over.
survival, over and over. again and again.
the dead. the survivors. the dead. 1947. 2001.
every year. the screams.

6.
this is not a revolution
this is
a puppet
show.

7.
the screams, the screams, the screams
ghosts join the chorus of
the newly dead
and still alive. voices
crossing earth
and time is circular
spinning when was the last
time we committed suicide on command
the last time we were
already sliced in two.

8.
like the disemboweled child
you have lost yourself
in the bombs.

9.
the people will still sing.

10.
the people will still sing.

11.
filling canyons with blood
only creates an ocean.
you are farther away now
than when you started.

*A suicide bomb killed at least 45 people on Sunday, November 2, 2014 near the Wagah border crossing in Pakistan. It is the only open land crossing between Pakistan and India since the Partition of the subcontinent by the British colonizers in 1947.


Sabrina-Ghaus-author-photoSabrina Ghaus is an artist, writer, and activist from the San Francisco Bay Area who now lives in Boston, MA. A second-generation Pakistani-American, she uses art to explore the politics of her identity and understand the intersections of race, immigration, violence, and gender.

One Comment Post a comment
  1. Chaya Babu #

    Beautiful. Heartbreaking. Thanks for writing Sabrina <3

    April 5, 2015

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