Anjum Hasan

No Sentence

No sentence is as long as the waking moment of the night.
Every lunchtime butter garlic fries, the boys water
the lawn. No elegy equal blood and glass.
The bazaar girls spread their turquoise rings, their owls
and their dolphins. No one’s earned the right.
I watch a butterfly swing by the frangipani.
No human is just human. Even the mosquitoes
here dream as they bite. We discuss where
to go for dinner. No memory sheathes its object tight.
The sun drops low then fades out, the lanterns sway.
No one can say – now, the world’s suffering adds up.
The waxing moon, the banana flower, the gin on ice.
No joy is without gaudiness, no murderer lacks a name.
I dream my mother’s missing. Nothing could make time
go by without newspapers and screams
and yet I can always find a way to say:
I mourn for it because it used to be my life.