Circus
Circus
The mouth
traced
the skyline
in a wait
laced
with mother
tongue
trained
to fire.
The ghosts
the gods
left us
good.
In my father’s closet
a can
of bullets.
I put one
in my mouth
to chew.
In my father’s closet
a gifted gun.
Still wrapped
in saran wrap.
Ribboned.
Flowered.
A good old fashioned
clown.
My father’s hands
like my own hands
big and strong
with fingers smaller
than their palms.
My father’s palms
smashing my back
for my throat
to let go off
a bullet choke.
My father
a crier.
A sobber.
An orphaned
joke.
Always trying
to get rid
of some kind
of fire fun.
My father
the only man
I can ever love
blind.
When I cross
the ocean
for a newer land,
I find
a body
of water
only to realize
it belonged
all along
to my womb.
Inside me,
submarines.
Traps.
Mines.
Several drowns.
All my father’s crowns
worn by a crowd
of drenched
clowns.
When the body
deflates
the clowns
swallow
my lungs.
They laugh
and float
in cheer
in salut
in cap throw
out of this lair.
Who is the one
who gives birth
to all the world’s
misunderstandings?
Is it human?
Is it God?
I must meet
that clown.
I must kill
that clown.
I must.
I must.
Every debris
reminds me
of hometown
where a tree
is a third world tree
its fruit
a third world fruit
its life
a third world life.
My father
takes an old tire
and ties it
to a barren
branch.
My father
recycles
repurposes
allows rebirth.
In the corner
of this third world
lies a ghost forest
full of drone children.
They run
through my father’s
open arms
to the new
tire swing
for play.
Ayesha Raees
Ayesha Raees (عائشہ رئیس) is a poet and artist identifying as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms whose work strongly revolves around issues of belonging and dislocation, G/god and spirituality, and beauty::cruelty while possessing a strong agency for decolonial, anti-violence, and anti-erasure practices.