Qandeel’s Song* | Rushda Rafeek

Seize the divan, dear brothers, my bandits. Under
a beaten sky what is left now shall not concede.

Chasing the once benignant is feral, a thwack of vixen
known to risk a satin’s cascade spattered like red lights.

I am trying to sweeten the rhubarb
but it is too much a chamber of sheer howls.

See, death can put no end to what is galvanized:
in the plushy strut of a stiletto, seamless as thigh,

casting aside life’s infirmity. One sting after another
lapping against these shores of a starlet. The power is planetary,

a celebration stretched vast and fuming. Does that stun you?
Wait, still more shall come, to cinch the trickle of torn songs

of those eyed like rigid buttons, steeped hot in dreams,
of those loving, luring blood as one might lick blade.

*This poem is a response to the murder of Qandeel Baloch.

 Rushda Rafeek’s other fiction pieces and poetry have been published/are forthcoming in Harpoon Review, Monkey Bicycle, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Asia Literary Review, The Bangalore Review, The Mandala Journal, The Missing Slate among others.