Two poems by Rumana Siddique
Red Lights
Sometimes
On the way back
To a room
Not worth returning to
I glance casually
Over dun-coloured buildings
Speckled with mildew and graffiti
Over desultory clumps
Of dust-choked trees
At a sudden frame
Of untarnished blue
Startling me like
An accidental open cage door
I stare foolishly
Till the lights turn green
Till I move on
All the way back
To a room
Not worth returning to.Breaking News
Curled up consciences
In armchairs of abandonment
Watching the world crush life
Out of each other in ruthless greed
Relishing our wonderful tranquility
Our own bloodline sleeps safely
In neat unpolluted rooms next-door
Leaving us free to sing sad refrains
On the quintessential unreliability of humanity
As ambulances take away broken specimens
Cold shivering relatives give sobbing interviews
And our thoughts wander to which shelf of the fridge
Is yesterday's left-over cold cut of hunter beef on? Rumana Siddique teaches English at Dhaka University.
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