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Poetry
Love and Marriage
Farzana Mazhar ?\u
Don't go like horse and carriage
I know, I've on one and in the other
1 loved him then, he told me a tale --After a cranberry sunset, a billion stars —
About a conference in Tokyo, Polite accents among ikebana
I had laughed, traced the line of a brow Said peel me, shuck me like banana skin
Picnic hamper plundered by our side Sandals tossed into laughing wind
Rats had stopped gnawing my insides Waves had crooned love and marriage...
Ten years later we lie - marriage bed.
Hah. 1 say! -- side by rickety side
Like campfire embers dying
Exchange slow chit-chat: Martha's
An ass. sorry'dear; Fred's mother-in-law Took a shine to me, damp old thing -
An empty wind blows through the house I arch and yawn, then reach for a smoke...
Farzana Mazhar All is based in Chicago.
Women at Forty
Nausheen Eusuf
Women at forty wake at dawn, rising in the morning's dark to pray, and bathe, and plait their hair before beginning the day's work.
They open windows, water plants, and watch the traffic on the street. They move among the quiet rooms, keeping the house and kitchen neat
Women at forty watch soaps and talk shows. They read advice columns in magazines. They get facials done, and manicures, to feel briefly like a queen.
Come afternoon, they sit obtside school gates and await the final bell. They heal cuts and scrapes with kisses, knowing their maternal offices well.
At night, they sit with needle and thread to patch up holes or seams rent apart in youthful games, mending all except the rift deep within their heart.
Nausheen Eusuf teaches at BRAC U" vera