Written by
Asmara Malik

Asmara Malik can usually be found lurking at http://elmara.deviantart.com [link], where she has, to-date, been awarded six Daily Deviations in Literature. She was one of the eight winners of the LUMS Young Writers Workshop & Short Story Contest 2013. She was short-listed for the Matthew Rocca Poetry Award by Verandah, an Australian journal of art, design and literature. Her work has appeared in Karachi: Our Stories in Our Words (OUP, Pakistan), Papercuts, Poets & Artists, Sparkbright, Read This Magazine and Breadcrumb Scabs, among others.

When A Baby Hasn’t Been Fed

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Her hands, fragile as bone-china roses,
so unlike yours, fist over. Rage

parts her lips, two petals voicing her ire.
Her eyes are wholly yours, a tumultuous

hazel, full of glee at your hair as it shambles
across your head, not quite concealing shadows

resting under your eyes. Yet, when she comes
to your breast, her mouth closes

close to your heart, each swallow timed
to your pulse. So fed, her lips tremble,

whispering something close
to the edge of prayer.

When a baby hasn’t been fed, you know:
no one will ever need you

as nakedly as her.

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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

When A Baby Hasn’t Been Fed