malalai khan

there’s a hush in the wind as i speak to you / each language i choose / twists into barbed wire around their ears / twice, i turn off the television / they are calling you something else again / numbers, refugee, traitor, vermin / their metronome mouths keep tally / open yours and tell us your name / —shhh, the vultures steal tongues / just like the soil beneath your soles— / turn to the setting sun and run the valley / far from their verses and weapons / before the hills learn your footsteps / two sparrows in the grass / tilt their heads toward you / small bones of breath, forgotten playthings / had the rubies remained / hidden in the mountain / you would’ve seen constellations / of tulips and portulacas / did you know that poppies sprout / where the shooting stars fall? // oh Messiah, these children cannot speak like you / who will bear witness that these mothers aren’t lying? / who will raise them from the rubble? / what do they become at borders? / what does the shrapnel know about liberation? / what does the government know about love? / tell me, who is going to sing / for the nightingale to return to the eglantine? // the screen is static, shifting ashes / i wish i remembered your name