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An Ām for the Firing Squad

Hannan Khan

an ām snagged on border wire

wind shakes it above two rifles

sabz rind warming in noon sun

dhūl lifts from the patrol road

two shadows study the boughs

 

one kāwā caws & thinks better

sweet scent crosses the barbs

no map follows that sweetness

someone retches on the west 

someone spits seeds on the east

 

the fruit fuliginated in open air

still hanging between two hungers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Translation 

 

ām (Urdu): mango
sabz (Urdu/Persian): green; often suggests unripeness or freshness
dhūl (Urdu): dust; fine earth carried by the wind
kāwā (Urdu): crow

Hannan Khan — a nefelibata, poet, fiction writer, editor, and scholar of literature & linguistics from Pakistan. He combs through moments of love, death, delirium & relational complexities, seraphically tracing what’s breathed and what flickers unbreathed. He is the winner of the Native Voices Award 2025 for his poetry collection Isn't Cooked Is Cursed. He sips coffee & reads Manto. His work has appeared in IHRAM Literary Magazine, Eye To The Telescope, Abyss & Apex, Winds Of Asia, Zoetic Press, Uncanny Magazine, Native Voices II: The Cry of Creation, Neon & Smoke, Full Bleed, Workers Write!, and Ghudsavar and is forthcoming in The Evergreen Review and Cahava Literary Journal. 

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