"Searching for Kabul" by Liala Zaray

Searching for Kabul

we were many things that night
but we were never cowards
padar whispers
i sit with my back positioned
against a couch riddled with
the weight of man and the voices
which haunt him
what dua do you recite
when a graveyard gives birth?
here lies a man who so proudly claims
he has inhumed his cowardice
refusing to give life to fear
until water breaks from his eyes
i fear the effect it has on the women
he chooses to take behind closed doors
never mind what happens to the ones
confined to the walls of his heart
the cracked reading glasses
perched on his nose
are not thick enough
to prevent him from reading
the alif in allah as I
my father carries wistfulness
on the tip of his tongue
i blame the accent
when the tv bores him more than his thoughts
he paints Kabul with every shade of crimson
the human body comes in
playing keep away with the rest
are all fathers absent in one color or another?

Liala Zaray

Liala Zaray is a Pushcart Prize-nominated MFA candidate at St. Mary’s College. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Tinder Box, BOAAT, and Frontier Poetry.

Headshot: Adil Studios

Photo Credit: Staff