poem

by Hibah Shabkhez

Boiled Eggs Dream in the Dark

Clutching fistfuls of cascading

  Silk, all night we watch

Barred windows slicing up the moon

  With steel, like a boiled egg—

Oh river, river, fleet, flowing river,

  Roar on to the sea:

Hold these blighted dream-wisps, fading

  Into the butterscotch

Sun of your waters now at noon

  Close, with an iron peg—

Oh river, river, fleet, flowing river,

  Come and set us free.

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Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric photographer from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, 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.