Raqiya Ahmed

No Man’s Land

EXHIBITION ROOM SHEET

A torn, worn-out chequered tea towel chests the following poem:

Knuckled grenades explode on the floury-sprayed dough,

Kneading trenches low like dental impressions,

For a spiralled, barbed-wire brace

Prickling pins and needles

Stinging skins, boiled from vegetable-oiled fires

Foggy smoke rises and inspires gargling perspiration

Drops, like rain, fall from her wrinkled forehead,

Extinguishing the flames from the base

She’ll cyclically fold and overturn

Squelching

Her gold cuffed bangles chiming,

Pleading for a treaty of peace