Solstice
The fog casts its net
over everything: cinnamon
branches, bone pavement.
Milkweed deepens
to indigo.
A flush of light brings
the angles of your face
close to me. I rise to find
jackets strewn
across the couch,
cords curled under the table.
There’s a blood-orange
wisp of color in my tea.
The bed covers become
a version of myself—
softer, crumpled, still warm.
Outside, someone
has strung tiny bulbs
over brick.
A leaf’s three points
blur into the sidewalk.
As I enter the cobalt
chill of twilight,
the air carries
faint smoke,
burning paper, leaves.
The night grows and
grows until it swallows
the day. It obscures
my shadow, and hides my face.
At the Stove-Side
What a thing! She arrives just in time
to slice onions for me, the rice
overflowing with froth at the lid.
The guests were happy with drinks
in hand but soon wanted
more than the poppadoms I’d fried.
I was glad when I woke but
sorry all day—she was no longer at my side
while chopping potatoes, stirring the dal,
frying seeds as they sputtered.
Now I’ve burnt this minced garlic, which adds
bitterness no matter how fresh
the vegetables. No matter, as my mother
often said, “No point in pointing
fingers when a mess has been made—I’m the one
who’ll have to clean it up.”
She watches me always, I think—
especially in April, when crocuses
poke through and die before you blink.
I lost her twenty years ago this week.
Advice
A child enters water
first, then a name and then
a body—a history.
She needed avocado
flesh, almonds, and
milk, more milk
than any student funds
could have supplied
(when a half-cup fed
both mother and unborn
child). Her children
grew round and gold,
fed by another country’s
butter. When they, too,
grew heavy
she instructed them
daily: three full cups
and lots of rest.
They did not guess
she ever carried anything
but a worried
look on her face. Or that
for a cup of rice
a local midwife had delivered
each one of them,
delivered from water
to breath. What little relief
from the silver pins
used to stitch
her whole again.
Lightning
She punched
holes in jar-lids
for walking sticks
and crickets
but not for fireflies.
Instead, the sidewalk
became her canvas,
each bug her paint,
with glowing bellies
scraped onto pavement.
Lips bitten
in concentration
and loose strands
slipping from a jeweled
clip, she cupped
each yellow bulb
with tenderness.
Then the twig,
the precision
and patience.
City of Bridges
Insomniac or thief,
you’re not content
to simply steal my sleep:
you make me crave
your city size—
all day, all gray, my prize
for living here,
a place where I forget
myself. You render me
invisible:
I’m faceless, bleak—
even the summer days
are laced with some
regret, these dandelions
shoving between widening
sidewalk cracks,
wrenched free of seed
and origin. The nights
you churn, I rise
and search your streets,
lacking a magic
bag of salts, a spell
to purify each drink,
the daily air
I breathe. And so I walk
until your sound grows
low and sweet, until I
hear your lullaby,
and sing as though
I would put myself to sleep.
Dilruba Ahmed’s debut book of poems, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf, 2011), won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for poetry. Her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Cream City Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, and Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. Her poems are forthcoming in Asian American Literary Review, Philadelphia Stories, Cerise Press, and The Normal School. |
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