A Prayer God Will Not Hear

/ Sameera

My eyes have begun resembling a museum
because every time I close them
death falls like an art.
Sometimes it hangs above my eyelids
and researchers introspect in awe.
Everything that was once alive
has touched the sand or wood
before embracing death.
Everything we love is protected by touchwood.

The skin I carry isn’t dark
but a fair shade of brown.
Maa never told me to apply cream
until I was down with fever
and started looking like a wilted flower
a lover holds my hand often
and memorizes the marks on my skin.
He says it looks like a fallen autumn leaf.
We both smile at the connection
and weep at the metaphor.
Maa tells me to apply cream
the fever hasn’t left me yet.

eyes/skin
I have nothing to show you more than these two things,
I have nothing to carry on my spine.
My back is a coffin
where flowers bloom sometimes.
A graveyard isn’t dead
but full of life that embraced
peace too early.
Life is a great job until it starts to underpay,
We regret what we don’t choose,
we cry for what we often choose.

The rain has begun to fall
I hear Azaan mixed with splashes of water
petrichor diffuses in the air along with
the camphor from the temple next door.
I close my eyes when I hear the Gurbaani
and wish for the brother who works in the Church.
My skin is a brown country
My eyes a forgotten history.

The steps that lead to the prayer
are often heavy and lost
God was last found in a dead foetus.

©Sameera Mansuri

The poem was first published on Olive Skins.

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