In the Name of Love: For Bano Bibi and Ehsan Ullah

1. 

Devoted to an invisible

membrane of honour, 

ablating you of all ill- 

repute, your feted guns 

raised half mast towards us, 

my tongue still drunk 

from my lover’s name.

2.

Had it been up to them

she wouldn’t have existed long 

enough to shame anyone’s lineage,

smeared instead on the inner 

thigh of her father.

3.

Their honeymoon, sweet,

sprawled deep inside 

a sovereign love, fortified

talisman of the heart

Can you be taken from me?

She’d whisper while he slept 

beside her.

4. 

Two bodies in love

riddled in bullets.

Everything submits 

artificially, borders 

drawn in blood.

5.

Wherever the small missiles scorched their bodies,

they had touched each other there first, tenderly too.

6. 

After twelve steps taken on falling knees,

sixteen bullets punctured organs that exited the body

into the eight doors of heaven, held slightly ajar. 

7.

The thing you fed our blood to 

is still hungry and requires more, 

so hungry, it’s feeding on itself.

8.

Each individual pain receptor will testify, 

the gun will want answers from the hand 

brandishing it, the trigger will testify against the finger 

and when questioned the hand will point to the heart,

and the heart will describe something like

an invisible membrane

shrouding it.

9.

Corrupted by legacy

of honour unearned, 

he who killed me 

lost himself long ago,

blood atonement. 

10.

The night before they forced us into a car 

and drove us to a dirt road to shoot

us until we lay motionless, do you remember

how I sipped milk out of your open palms? 

After hours spent parting the foaming sea, 

didn’t you nestle deep inside my coordinates,

you said my oceans governed you.

My love were we not made of milk the night 

we lapped at each other, on all fours as 

the moon dipped low to join us, our insides jumped

it was hot and we felt free 

to roam the earth.

11.*

It has been taken into account. 

Yes I loved you.

Yes I was punished for loving you.

Yes, even my cells lined up in rebellion. 

And yes my soul touched yours briefly as we ricocheted back towards our creator.

And yes another version of us exists somewhere raising children.

Yes we were devoted to one another.

Yes I remember sleeping beside you.

Yes I remember the words you whispered into my ear.

Yes I remember the sweetness of even your spit.

Yes, it was our honour.

*after Muriel Rukeyser