It's like Love at fourteen
When the world of youth collides
With the flowery elan of poetry
That you had no idea existed,
When rambunctiousness
Gives way to the feline touch,
A mysterious softness like a veil
To ebb the current of torment.

It's not meant to be for all kinds
Of impossibilities, an age gap,
A revolution, distance, immaturity
Or plain cowardice. Running away,
When the battle is finally won
And against all her better judgment
She lits up and says alright, let us
Consume this expensive moment.

And why should we get everything
When the opposite lights bright
A whole lifetime of motivation?
A fire that burns words on paper
Inserted in thin blue envelopes
Edged with colourful chevrons
And two pink Shahs shredded,
Unread, then taped back at midnight?

Her pale hands, the index finger
Tracing each jagged line under candle
For the return of the beloved,
Until the last sentence her hopes high,
The still image of a maiden held
In a modern jail, knocking on the glass
With a stone that separates tombs
From the tap-tap of the plight.

A country is always female.
The men look back and sigh
God only knows for how long.
It's unfair. They should remain.
Instead of prostitutes a home,
Reflecting in the pool of rain
Other people's children in a park,
Sitting on a bench but not at rest.

Unless it's a bird of prey
And the softness is gone.
Chivalry once again marching on.
The women and children in hiding,
Debris as far as the eye can take,
Overhead doors, underneath death,
In between a narrow plane covered
With peacock feathers like a nest.


Jam24