A Prayer For Memory

By Arsch Sharma

Let it rain ash,

Ash that flakes mid-air,

Ash that was once my mother’s blood.

Let there be days that quiver in

The burning shadows of the night:

Nights speckled with moments of abject clarity and want of love.

We will tell our stories through these long nights,

And come morning, we’ll fall silent in trepidation.

There is nothing that can be spared,

Nothing can escape this confounded contract:

This contract of shame and guilt,

Bound in skin and clutched tight against the chest,

Tracing every fractured heartbeat until

All metaphors of anatomy pale out in the dawn.

By Arsch Sharma