“Bastards Of Lahore” and “Tandoor E Amour”

Bastards of Lahore

they are the ones you curse at in traffic
sharpened nails; gums drenched with voracity; cracked heels
licking blood like biryani grease off the asphalt
howling through jaws xanthic by betrayal

they don’t bark; they avow; they don’t fetch—
they hound things that never craved to be caught:
trucks, paramours, daddies, creeper vans
each thrust on the roadside is a litany against loyalty

each mounting, an intifada against monogamy’s gallant leash
they slumber under benches & inside marriages
they nose crotches & open arcana; they fuck like saudade—
half cherished, abhorred, returning in breuddwyd

the mosque’s stairs reminisce them
the temple walls still harbour their urine-stained grin
they have baciato the sweat off a dying man’s cheek
they have licked your femmes when you lose track of zvezdani

some of them don collars; some don aurum rings
some tether to eclectic metals; their incisors have
frenched the same necks that politicians kysset in the parlors
they’ve tattooed the wrist that signed laws

they’ve humped justice till she gråt
they sniff under the dører of parliaments
where budgets haemorrhage & døtre are bartered
they’ve heeded ministers moan to lads no older than the orphans by the canal

they landed from where the kites dör
where zoo lions crash into the shit & monkeys
absorb to mimic your chén xī news anchors
they breed in the nooks of slaughterhouses

wake under fly-bitten billboards
where slogans fester & spit cheap vows on polymer bags
they’ve peered at the wife with a sewn lip
who caters mutton to her hubby with both hands

they witnessed her bury the kitten he broke
then wipe the plaster walls clean with her dupatta
they’ve beheld men unzip in alleyways
schoolgirl uniforms ripped like roti

panting breath over contusions as the metanoia
nation changed the channel; they glanced at twelve-year-olds
with raptured palms scrubbing marble mansions
while their abbas drank away their backs

& their ammas embroidered abashment into
other damsels’ wedding lehngas; they gazed at an uomo
sentenced for a crime another confessed to in a kotha
where a judge voiced his verdict between the thighs—

of a ballerina older than the drejtësi
they’ve scented infidélité in the cologne of ipomoea alba’s
hushedness; harkened gémissements beneath quran recitations
& peeked engagement rings tossed into gutters

beside pollo bones & condoms
they’re graffiti in lads’ bathrooms—summoning truths
your sermons won’t graze; they’re splintered glass in children’s
feet as they hare barefoot past corpses you step over with bismillah

they watched your figlio bend over for power
watched you figlia crawl into fame, wearing only
her madre’s name; they’ve admired lahore blush in their
shadows; red light zones dressed like royalty

wagah border & heera mandi syncing the
same aching sloboda; brick by brick, the city’s dome
erects under faith & lust; they sauntered the ribs of anarkali
spying through cocked knockoffs & bangles

uncles vending knockoffs eau de parfum next to
dudes stroking trigger fingers; beneath mannequins
who have orgasmed more undressing than half of the bröllopsnatt
they’ve seen universities spilling out students in branded chains

coaching them to file resume before they can
punctuate their cognomen; to vote for rapists in pastel ties
to quote Rumi over cicatrices they gave the sable night before
they’re the guards of fort that still smells of emperors & expired préservatifs

älskare scribbled on stones like death notes
they’re not dogs; they’re; they’re not humans; they’re
the shadowy mirror fogs when they respire
lean close: that’s your snout, not theirs

they do not tarry for amour
they tarry for the dark; the click of a gate
a footstep cushy with guilt; & then they slide in
lap your wounds like they’re theirs

piss in your invocations
& curl in the bed where your promises putrefy
they’re the cani of lahore—
or maybe lahore just itself: flesh-mouthed; blood-eyed

munching on every moniker you muse would stash you