Duplex: Rupture
Hafsa Zulfiqar | Poetry
Mother begins a redundant apology, her dystonia-bound tongue fog-laced & sloppy.
I lay down my body beside her, two empty rinds registered for second-hand lives.
I dream of laying down my body beside her, two empty rinds in second-hand lives.
Mother is a ghost-written version of her mother, a haphazard cut and then paste.
I begin as a ghost-written version of mother but my hunger is a cut and my dreams a paste.
I migrate too far for ghosts, mother, mother’s mother, the sun, and master sea-straddling.
I never migrate too far from ghosts or mother even when I master sea-straddling.
I repeat, repeat, repeat, what is already written for a daughter—inherited trauma.
Mother repeats, repeats, repeats her mother’s history of inherited trauma.
She’s passable for her mother and mother’s mother wanting, waiting, and wilting.
I surpass mother and mother’s mother in wanting, waiting, and wilting.
My words have started to slur, a mirror of my mother’s tongue.
My words slur in my mothertongue as I speak of the sea, a mirror of my mother’s tongue.
Mother begins a redundant apology, her dystonia-bound tongue fog-laced & sloppy.
Hafsa Zulfiqar is a poet, editor, and literary critic from Sindh, Pakistan. She is currently an MFA candidate at Cornell University. Her work which has received the WNDB Walter Grant, three Best of the Net, and a Pushcart nomination can be found or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Pleiades, swamp pink, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, The Margins, Poetry Wales, Lunch Ticket, Waxwing, The Adroit Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, & elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for Muzzle Magazine and as an assistant editor for EPOCH.