And yet love is a darkened menu to date

Your city, an ex-lover of sunshine
A lizard incapable of moving, despite its desire to mate
As if it's in pursuit of the intolerably sultry, a wailing.

Did you never think the ducks were dead?
When you saw the doors to the government godown of ducks locked

They were dead as any of your senile lovers—
Didn't you even consider the countless plumes that fluff
Around their skinned bodies
Were attending their carcasses.

Yet love is still a shadowed menu.
A menu devoid of rice, of wheat
Of the hurried, bloody imprints of newly dead ducks.
In the city that's the ex-lover of sunshine
Some people still use their names to show the distance,
Affinity remains a locked den,
The rusty metal hoops swing the locks,
And maybe some ardent letters slot,

Letters written from Shyamgram.

Who are those that love still?
Who loves all these perplexities?
The two-pin plug dies suffering the electric tyranny,
Only the stories of short-circuit overwhelm the rooms.
Love literally is a shadowed menu,
You know what you are in for, don't you? Antara?

Translated by: Shagufta Sharmeen Tania

Iraz Ahmed is a poet and journalist from Bangladesh, who, over the course of three decades - has established himself as a unique, and distinctive voice in the Asian literary world. 

Shagufta Sharmeen Tania's stories have appeared in Wasafiri, Asia Literary Review, City Press, Massachusetts Review, Adda magazine, and Speaking Volumes Anthology Not Quite Right for Us. Her short story "What Men Live By" was shortlisted for Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022.