Written by
Momina Mela

Momina Mela is a poetry editor at Papercuts. She is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan, and a BA English Literature graduate from Goldsmiths. She was short-listed to be Young Poet Laureate for London in 2013, and also short-listed for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize and National Student Poetry Competition (UK). She has carried out poetry writing workshops through DWL in Lahore which are designed specifically for Pakistani poets writing in English. She has read her work in Southbank Centre and the Houses of Parliament amongst other events and locations in London as well as having a poem featured in an outdoor gallery in Shoreditch. Her work has appeared in Smiths Magazine, Lighthouse Journal, Thrice Fiction, and National Student Poetry Anthology.

Outside The Cafe

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Photo by Rebecca McCue

It was hard at first; to watch a neat
blossom of sunshine ricochet from his dipped temple

and pack into the body of
a kebab nearly in my mouth, gathering heat in its half raw stillness,

this single sunbeam took
responsibility for us like an older sister

exchanging airy carvings of dust between, depositing knowledge of onions pressed into meat

your shoulder took leave, I could not carry it in my hands

to treat this jutting bone like a cup of lentils
scooped from its pile until it tires through my fingers
back to its original tendon

such unhappy immigrants we must have seemed
a nod and watery squint for a goodbye.

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• A BIANNUAL LITERARY MAGAZINE BROUGHT TO YOU BY DESI WRITERS' LOUNGE •

Volume 14

Home Is Not A Place - Spring 2015

Verse

Outside The Cafe