Fatima Jafar

Silence

And then—
A sound, shimmering from within the closed bedroom;
behind the door, my two daughters sing to each other,
one plucks the guitar, the other cannot stop
laughing each time they reach the chorus,
that point in the song that tenders like a bruise
when their voices rise with the flurry of pressed leaves.
I sit in the hallway and imagine them collapsing into each other.
Something bright and orange swims out from the keyhole
coming to devour me entirely   I am a willing bowl
brimming with thankful blood,
desperate for the yellow light leaking out from under the door,
for their warm feet on the wooden staircase,
for the squares of green glass they wear on their ears.
As a young girl, I believed my mother to be fashioned from concrete,
packed tight into a manufactured sternness,
there to straighten collars and tuck hair firmly behind the ears.
Only now am I privy to the softening:
her curved back as she shuffles out from
her bedroom in a shower cap, crawls on to her knees and
sighs beside me, one good ear
pushed against the door to hear the singing.

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Fatima Jafar is a Pakistani poet living in Boston, where she is an MFA Poetry candidate at Emerson College. She is a Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine and Redivider, and is the co-creator of the South Asian literary platform DHOOP Journal. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Anti-Heroin Chic Mag, The Pinch, Jamhoor, dreams walking and more. You can find her on Twitter at @rafajf2112.