Three Poems by Momina Raza

 

Baptism

 

“Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” — Psalm 51:7

 

the water stings–

every drop of water,

i count like prayer beads.

 

steam softens the shame,

turns it holy.

 

i mistake the steam as your breath

draping my body

 

your name slips,

not a prayer,

not a curse,

an apology.

 

the flower blooms in grief

 

the climax feels like forgiveness

till it doesn't

i open my mouth,

                                             left agape…

 

bless the shower

for never asking why.

 

there are secrets that only water knows,

 

clean me of my shame,

                                                                                                                        disperse me like light!

 

Letter to a Lost Lover

after Barbara Hamby

 

Is there a theological Urdu word to describe what

has happened

                              between us, like, barzakh, which is

used

for washing blood away from my hands, but after I

walk to the next haveli,

                              I wash my hands again; or faqadān

which is an emptiness that remembers and aches

for many years

perhaps, for eternity even after

all scars have healed,

                              this wound shall remain blooming.

Sara Shagufta confesses, weaving a language of silence:

“These eyes, this heart, give it

to a hollow man.”

 

I long for a word for someone who looks into her lover’s face

               and sees his smooth skin peel off like a candle’s wax that has

burnt with endless ardour in the sleepless nights of Lahore where

               childless mothers tie red threads in shrines, a dog

howling at what used to be divine, motia blooming with grief,

mistaking tears as rain drops, counting each like penance,

books everywhere, Agha Shahid Ali on Naheed, Ghose under Rafat,

               writings all scribbled with stories of lost lovers, once sipping

coffee in a bookshop, tenderness woven into fingers that tremble

               to feel the same love they lost in the crowded streets of

Liberty Market, endowed with my grandmother’s silk sarees,

 

I can see what he sees– all my books dogeared

to safely honour the flowers my friends gifted me in sepia

toned books as souvenirs, remnants gently wrapping

itself in ink and memories, feet adorned with red paint and

               gold anklets, flashing like wheat in lush fields, veins

flowing like rivers of milk, eyes as bright as hope in hospitals,

               how unlucky we are to love in distance, for a moment,

I can’t help but think of Shagufta, a fire burning her soul, looking

               at the man she loved, thorns for hands, saying,

“I dress myself in my pain”, as I turn those pages, I feel the heat of

               your absence, a symphony lost in longing, as the book

closes, the spine arching its back, moaning a prayer.

I Could Never Speak to Allah About You

 

In a dream, I wake up

with hooves for feet.

 

The raven at midnight,

a warning. I never understood

 

why did my hair turn grey? —

a reminder of my grief

 

of always waiting for Godot who

never arrived. Once, I laid bare in

 

desolate moors, the moon draped

me with light and forgiveness that

 

stung like my grandmother’s curse

of loving the wrong people.

 

Redemption lies beyond so I break

the moon into pieces, glass splintered like

 

unforgotten idols in grottos. I never

learnt the language of silence.

 

I washed my feet with dirt every time

the wind carried your name to me.

 

A forlorn dog howls at what used to

be divine. Brothels witnessed more

 

prayers than a masjid, I could never

speak to Allah about you.

Momina Raza is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. She holds an MPhil degree in English Literature from Kinnaird College for Women. She was selected as a finalist for the 2025-26 Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate program in English. Momina’s work has been published in literary journals such as Borderless and Pandemonium among others. You can find her on Instagram @momina17_.