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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Iqra Khan is a bilingual poet, activist, and lawyer. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pidgeonholes, Apogee, HAD, Palette Poetry, Baltimore Review, and others. Her work is centred around the experiences of the brown body, particularly the Muslim body, collective nostalgia and the aspirations of her endangered community.

IN THE END, THE ALEFS CURL by Iqra Khan

Monday, 14 November 2022 by Iqra Khan
https://fourwayreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Khan-Iqra-In-the-End-the-Alefs-Curl.m4a


into
ل ’s       and Allah is
a mutilation
of meaning in 

prayers       are refrains
of nursery rhymes       the children
draw a fighter
plane below
names of the extinct

birds         and emperors
cross the Indus
for mangoes— light
sweetened, sweating

golden     sun-
-flower stalks
the indigo          labourer
on her way to where the day’s
poems are powdered to

an ellipsis        pierces tales of djinn
a Hazara mosque erupts
in pigeons         a boy
somersaults across embellished

Mecca, Mecca!
If you are home
to God and only 
hours
from Jerusalem      send
a message where
the map is still

green with olives. Look there, love
is a thing 
farther
than the bloody moon
where nuclei cannot be

split               daily
bread and pomegranates
with me, jaana, bite and
savour these
tautened globules

of blood       on tongues
I know one thing:
it alefs,
and it alefs.

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  • Published in ISSUE 25
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