Poem of the Week: Zohra Saed

         

   

Kandahar       

 

Behave or the sleeping Alexander will reclaim your lungs.

Kandahar -

............Was once a cube of sugar

Refusing to dissolve in the sea.

It became a city from sheer stubbornness.

Alexander naively said,

"This is my land!"

causing the earth to giggle and birth him a wife

Rukhshana. (Roxanna if you prefer).

This wife refused to dissolve in his sea.

We know how the bright sun found him

The next day - snuffed by an ornate embroidered pillow -

The pillow and the three drops of Alexandrian blood

Have been preserved by the mountains.

Kandahar could never be Alexandria after that delicious murder.

 

-Zohra Saed       

Used by permission.

Originally published in notebook #105 from documenta(13)   

  

Zohra Saed is the co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature (University of Arkansas Press). Her poetry has appeared in: Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality Ed. Sarah Hussein (Seal Press); Speaking for Herself: Asian Women's Writings Ed. Sukrita Paul Kumar and Savita Singh (Penguin India); Seven Leaves One Autumn Ed. Sukrita Paul Kumar and Savita Singh (Rajkamal Prakashan Publishing: New Delhi, India); and most recently Sahar Muradi & Zohra Saed: Misspelled Cities (Notebook #105, documenta 13).  

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