Two poems by Razia Sultana Khan

Photo of Five Year Old Girl in Hijab

Enshrouded in white,
bound head and body
you sit on a prayer mat.
No arms, no legs,
Invisible
a white lily
in the Snow Queen's land.
Your eyes
Trapped
like the moon
in a well.

Mother and Child

Little cells in a beehive
the slum desperately teeters to the slant.
Our train grumbles past a hut,
built on the fill.
Shards and shingles
anchor the blue plastic sheeting,
a roof. The loose ends
shudder as the train runs,
past a young woman
her child clinging on her hip's crook.
She flings a soiled katha made of old saris
onto the roof for the sun to cleanse.
Another sunny day.
She takes a deep breath,
folds herself in half, enters the darkness
her back to the passing train.

Razia Sultana Khan is a short story writer and poet who is at work on her first novel.