portrait of my father in his grave

i s s u e: 1

// p o e t r y

portrait of my father in his grave
by Ammara Younas

it's a soliloquy—

if I close my mouth  there's a foetus throat growing there

   where water pipes burst but nothing comes out

I feel the need to bawl & ask for food & warmth

   & water   but my tongue has circled the roundness of earth

   like a pilgrim

it knows too much it knows too much it knows

too much

once on earth it moved with venom & speed like that of a cottonmouth

& now when I set it free              it comes back again

it's the elastic strap of a catapult  it's the up-dive mid-air against

    gravity

I wish to set it free just enough to taste

    the terrible earth beneath me

but when I open my mouth   there's a myth writing itself

    with its gods all dead & pitted or turned into sallow fossils

I'd like to be a fossil

   they    for once   will remember me

about the author // Ammara Younas

Ammara Younas (she/her), a poet from Pakistan, has work published & forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Glass, Tahoma Literary Review, The Shore, Subtext Literary Magazine, Gabby & Min’s Literary Review, The Imagist, Small World City, Lakeer, and Resonance. She is currently serving as a guest editor at Subtext Literary Magazine.

Instagram: @_ammarayounas Twitter: @_ammarayounas