Partition
by Anitha Ahmed
Papa shows me a photograph—
A Chinese river, red as a wound.
“How can it be
transformed in hours?” he says.
His tone is sharp—as if
I had taken a knife to the earth’s jugular,
as if my hands could stitch it together.
“Must be a tide of red algae—
it will go back to normal,” I say.
Papa’s eyes darken:
“These signs are no good,” he says.
He says a thousand miles from the river,
Pakis tani boys bleed for martyrdom
or at the hands of foreign drones;
their grandmothers burn still from rape.
The seventy-year-old borders
are still barbed, still crimson.
Now, I study arteries.
I study circulation.
I learn to suture.
Once, I stood on a stool
and watched Papa mix
a thread of saffron into my milk.
Then, I only had to clench my teeth
to refuse to drink.
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