by Hibah Shabkhez
Boiled Eggs Dream in the Dark
Clutching fistfuls of cascading
Silk, all night we watch
Barred windows slicing up the moon
With steel, like a boiled egg—
Oh river, river, fleet, flowing river,
Roar on to the sea:
Hold these blighted dream-wisps, fading
Into the butterscotch
Sun of your waters now at noon
Close, with an iron peg—
Oh river, river, fleet, flowing river,
Come and set us free.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric photographer from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.