Sophia Naz
Kanchan Chander, ‘Queer Moods’, acrylic on canvas, 43 inches x 27 inches, 2017
In your teenage a niggling
detail kept on tugging
at the reins Buraq was
an anagram of burqa, winging
desire of a prophet on
his night journey painted
in lurid art of transport
half veiled on rickshaw truck and bus
drivers changing gears always
brushed up against your shalwar
leg jammed too tight to squirm
you would dream of the kick
as an anonymous horse-
woman would gut
his teeth in a flash
lightning bringing
a lost smile
back to your lips.
Barq is the Urdu word for lightning.
Poem © Sophia Naz; image © Kanchan Chander.
Pushcart Prize nominee (2016), Sophia Naz is a poet, writer, translator and an editor published in numerous literary journals including Poetry International Rotterdam, The Adirondack Review, Scroll, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Daily O, Dawn, BlazeVOX, The Stonecoast Review, Cactus Heart, Askew Poetry, Bank Heavy Press, Spilled Ink, Lantern Journal, Convergence, Antiphon Poetry UK, AAJ, The Sunflower Collective, AntiSerious, Zubaan Journal, Pseudomag, The Ghazal Page, Life & Legends among others. Her poetry collections are Peripheries, Pointillism and Date Palms. Naz is Poetry Editor at The Sunflower Collective and City, a Quarterly of South Asian literature. She is the founder of Rekhti, a site on avant-garde Urdu poetry. Her website is www.trancelucence.net