What is the Meaning of Pakistan?

Asad Emaan Ali
Aug 31, 2018 · 1 min read

“What is the meaning of Pakistan?”

Ask Anarkali, buried in between two walls.

I celebrate the burying of two loves without shame.

I am ashamed, now that I have everything I asked for.

Provide four male witnesses for America.

Four male witnesses stand in the snow,

now they are waiting to run into the Indus River and take Persian names.

One believes in revision, others believe in stones.

“Pakistan ka matlab kya?”

Four male witnesses ask and answer this question.

There is no god but God.

***

When you ask me why I love a country, I remain silent.

I do not know what to tell you.

Sometimes, I cry.

Today the last man of his tribe was found by modern cameras.

We spoke of him as though we did not belong to tribes.

Poem II from When I Speak of God (February 2018-August 2018).

Asad Emaan Ali

Written by

Lahori, undergraduate at University of Virginia. My work has appeared/is forthcoming in The A3 Review, High Shelf Press, and Cathexis Northwest Press.