Zindabad

Above my head the route cuts cuneiform into dark cliffs, zig zags with mosquito persistence upon the valley walls, an erratic compass pointing north to Karimabad.

Heavy metal trucks sashay and roll the mountain roads, in circus procession; automobelly dancers laden with booty, their coin ornaments jingling with petrol promise. >> >>The rays refract the cliff face into corrupted charcoal darts, and the midday heat swoons me to remember Lahore, that melted us like butter dropped on hot rock. We cooked each other in the spices of its labyrinth bazaars till five days in we were tender in our swan-mating like rare birds.

Back on the highway you disappear in a flash of diesel dust, it’s just me and the road again and the scorched earth. My head is still clouded from the Shandur sun and now my chest aches from conjured memories. >> >>Was it an elegy to your absence, a faint lament that you’re gone? The ice-covered peaks preordained ‘Return’ and the black asphalt exclaimed the Hindu Kush promise: Torn asunder together.