Sophia Naz writes in both English and Urdu. Her work has been featured in several literary journals. Her recently published poetry collections are Peripheries, Pointillism and Date Palms.

‘Anatomy of a Hyphen’ is one of her latest poems.

Anatomy of a Hyphen

It’s not a straight line
As you would imagine a plane
Flying from point to point

The world is curled
As the toes of Philippe Petit, bleeding
On a high wire without a net
Midway across the vertiginous Towers
Of the World Trade Centre

It was 1974 and you were
Only 10 when you saw this scene
On the cover of a glossy magazine
But your memory is clear
As the still waters of a lake in Gilgit

You laid your pointer finger square
Upon the French man’s sole and declared
“I’m going there!”

Twenty-seven years later
Everything that’s disappeared mirrors
How half your life span has veered
Standing in the middle
Of the razor thin hyphen
A steering wheel careening
In between east
Of your body — west of the compass
And the hiss of the colossal abyss

Echoing in your ears.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 29th, 2018