Effigy

In my mother's eyes burned a mosque
In his mother's eyes burned a temple
And in our eyes an effigy
Of a charred, half-melted God


They never told us how to love
just how not to
after we had done it
his alphabet from the right and mine
from the left colliding
we were dizzy
from trying to sort it all out
'my God has six hands
yours has none'
and between that
he counted the lashes
on my eyes
and I, the hairs
on his chest

Then they reached for
the esophagus
to halal the haram
like expert butchers
making cuts
in certain places
to drain the red out
and so alphabets became
directionless
hands multiplied
and both of us died
thirsty

 

*halal: Arabic/Urdu word. Islamic way of purifying meat that involves
crushing the esophagus and incisions to drain the blood
*haram: Arabic/Urdu word. unpurified; against Islam; evil doer

Shikha Malaviya is the publisher and editor of Monsoon Magazine, a journal of South Asian literature and culture. Her poetry has been published in Conspire, Gravity, Impossible Object, Riding the Meridian, In Posse Review and other journals. She recently completed a manuscript of poetry focusing on her experiences as a South Asian immigrant woman, and is working on a second poetry manuscript as well as a novel.