Aiman Tahir Khan

Kintsugi

In the long winter evenings, beyond
the window, denuded trees raising their
ampersand arms, bruised knuckles in the smog
soaked sky. The towel in my hands damp,
a sloppy shade of brown. I dreamt
your mother recently. She had compassionate eyes.
I would’ve liked to be a mother someday
of a child with those eyes. Today I learned
that birds sing in their sleep, inventing
the notes in their birdsong. I regret most acutely
those moments I could have touched you,
and didn’t. On this Earth, it will matter little
that we met—leaves filling up the ground, gold
clinging to the fractures of broken plates
—the inside of your gaping mouth a river
my fingers will never soak in again.

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Aiman Tahir Khan is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. Currently the first Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate in English, her poems appear in Penn Review, Wildness, Rust & Moth and other publications. She loves Amaltas trees.