Lightness

How do I tell you? For empty things are also light.
It’s like a reflection tossed to a stasis between mirrors,
a lungful of shout over a bridge.

My room is full of closed windows; I make sight with trapped reflections.
And while some days I am like these lit-up buildings,
On others I break into a splinter or shine far away in the sky.

The search, you see, is how to look away.
I feel like someone who fights darkness with his hands.

 

 

Bilal Tanweer is a writer and translator. His publications include the novel, The Scatter Here Is Too Great (HarperCollins) and translation, Love in Chakiwara and Other Misadventures by Muhammad Khalid Akhtar (PanMacmillan India). He teaches in the Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies Program at LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan.

 

To view other content published in this issue, 9:1, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE! Visit our website for details.