Noon
My name has a noon ghunna at the endâ a noon
without a dotâ
â a deepâ
nasal sound that lives at the bottom
of Pakistani throatsâ Germans call me âRakhshaââ
They make the âRâ thickâ and pastyâ like
â
and are confounded by theâ
â âIs it silent?â
âNo,â I tell them, âit is half-silent.ââ So their
mouths try itâ but the half-silence of it
makes their tongues stumbleâ
I wonder which forgotten histories bequeathed
our mouths this strange soundâ
which passing empires taught our tonguesâ
the shades of noonâ
My Urdu-Persian nameâ
gets lodged in the throats of
immigration officers like a wish-bone,
centuries of residual historiesâ claw at their jawsâ confusing
their inexperienced tongues, their
teeth click hastily around the noonâ
â
the unpronounceable parts of my mongrel
nameâ cloaked in an Anglo-Saxon ânââ make them pause
for breathâ My mother gave me this strange nameâ not to
punishâ European tonguesâ but
because it tasted sweet to her tongueâ
the way she says itâ she twists âRakhshanâ into
Rakhshuâ her voice like velvet crĂšme brĂ»lĂ©eâ
When she calls me, I remember that
my name was not always a criminalâ
a confounding intonation to be
policed at a border-crossingâ but wasâ
something softâ that purredâ I was
someoneâs Mashukâ belovedâ I still get letters in the mailâ
addressed to Mr. Rakhshmannâ a sort
of retributionâ for the verbal gymnastics
I put authority figures throughâ Sometimesâ
I do not correct themâ pleased at the Germanness
of my nameâ I wonder
what it would be to glide through Europe
my skin, my scarf, my eyes,
my words, my jawâ untouched by
the gazes and whispered wordsâ of white Europeansâ
To be Rakhshmannâ blondeâ and blueâ
and protected in a conch-shell of my whitenessâ
to be untaintedâ by historyâ
(What is it about white skin which makes it
unable to carry history? And
what is it about mine, that makes it able to carry it?)
The shape of my mouth accommodates intermediate
sounds, words at the precipice of Anglo-Saxon soundsâ
Sounds that have burnt their boats to Germanic languages?
Sounds whose precarious crossingsâ
across land and waterâ determine
the maps of my lifeâ fragrant sounds like
â maâ bittersweet like judaiyaanâ
separation.
Paisley
Her first cry was unpainted, her second paisley,
her body was velvet, cross-stitched on paisley,
Ozymandias desired a male heir, not paisley,
history is carved into marble busts, not paisleys,
they tried to straighten her out, little paisley,
for she always curled at the tip like paisley,
on Grecian urns and bas-reliefs, figures of paisley,
not walking the vulgar streets, sisters of paisley,
interred into the body of cashmere, delicate paisleys,
and then kept indoors, in a perfumed box, centuries of paisley,
in Lahori newspapers the stories of bloodied paisleys,
skulls cracked, limbs burnt, dishonourable paisley,
they unmade the daughter of Eve, quivering paisley,
with corrosive acid, the effaced body of paisley,
on the aquamarine Jhelum, the motif, unmistakably paisley,
her shalwar buoying to the surface, the supine body of paisley,
in her childrenâs mouths lie morsels of paisley,
wedged between her husbandâs teeth, slivers of paisley,
Eve-teasers slant their eyes, the body of paisley,
their caresses and whispered words, naked paisley,
bronze men on horseback rode on invisible paisley,
empires con...