If I could, I would,
Wear your words across
My shoulders like medallions,
Medallions that press into crescents of bone,
A nishan: that is always indicted as lesion
Perhaps bringing one to hunter’s moon
And then to the antiquated crush of ardour,
That is, of course, a shattered hand mirror,
And a mess of expletives inked on a pillowcase.
If ardour-struck,
I wouldn’t know what to do with your perverse
Admiration, which honestly is the brightest ardour,
Writing as you do, every word,
For lions tranquilized
Into a kind of pupilage
Bio note:
Afshan Shafi has studied English literature and international relations at The University of Buckingham and Webster Graduate School London. Her poems have been published in Pakistan and abroad. Some of her published work can be found in Poetry, Poetry Wales, Blackbox Manifold, Flag + Void, Luna Luna, Clinic, and 3:AM Magazine, Smear (edited by Greta Bellamacina), The New River Press Yearbook, and When They Start To Love You As A Machine You Should Run (edited by Heathcote Ruthven). Her debut chapbook of poems, Odd Circles, was published by Readings (Pakistan) in 2014. She has also served as a poetry editor for The Missing Slate.
