malalai khan

the sun shines crimson over the mountainside
like the blood of slaughtered animals on akhtar,
and i count the trees in the valley,
burnt to ash like the grey in my mother’s hair.

prayer slips into my tongue and out,
the lips dry and bleeding,
kneeling 
on the dying light,
red like the poppies that die the next day,
red like the saffron spilled in the streets,
red like the pomegranate ripening at dawn.

the knife is covered with honey,
my name engraved all over it,
but i am cursed by name 
in eternal melancholy
and cursed by the blood 
that flows through my arteries,
blue against my fists 
that turn into white chalk,
the cracks of the ceiling 
running down the wrists.

the curtains billow while darkness eats me whole,
and i am Abraham with the honed blade
and i am Ishmael with the accepting smile
and i am the ram with the pleading eyes.

a throat is slit.
who am i?

silence screams from the sky
and a swan lies dead in the river,
red.