Marriage

By Zubaida Ifshan

We bleed the love, they taught us into this unloving sea - indissoluble, it crystallised into pieces of rubies that you give me on our anniversary

We thought the sea would swallow this viscous shame of our union- the waves came back with our child

The sea rolls towards his moon belly- he plays with the tides and squelches our fish like a sea monster

My beloved our destinies are the two tributaries rallying again and again in this sea, swollen in unbearable redness- it gushes over me

In the reflection of the two little seas stitched on your eyes- O stranger

I saw tears that I shall never cry and the shore I shall never reach.

By Zubaida Ifshan