Poetry

Hibah Shabkhez

Home, Snail-Mail Me

Home, snail-mail me my ghost in card-backed brown
Paper, with your name scrawled on the back. Frown
At termite-tunnels and spider-spun webs,
Pry me loose from their sands as time’s tide ebbs;
              Home, snail-mail me my ghost.

Send me old pain, sepia-soaked, to crown
The numbness of exile. These blank walls drown
All my forced mirth. Send our old laughter’s dregs,
With plates knocked-over, and snapped cloth-pegs;
With the snugness of that one ragged gown
              Home, snail-mail me my ghost.

Rest in pieces, crumble in peace. Go down
In obscurity, like a nest wind-blown
To the sea. In the shells of broken eggs
              Home, snail-mail me my ghost.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Bandit Fiction, Shot Glass Journal, Across The Margin, Panoplyzine, Feral, Literati 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.

Blog: https://hibahshabkhezxicc.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @hibahshabkhez
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hibahshabkhezsarusaihiryu/
Instagram: @shabkhez_hibah