Faruk Ahmed Roni
Under the sky’s broken eyelid
the wind drags the bitter smoke of skin.
Streets wear thirst like cracked clay,
stitched shut with the black thread of burning roofs.
Far away
ships rock with bellies full of wheat
but the harbor gates
are welded by hands
that have never cupped the dark weight of an empty bowl.
Somewhere, a bowl waits
The melting sun drips into it,
turning thirst
into boiling blood.
The soil remembers rain
but not the faces that begged for it.
Wells lie open like throats mid-scream,
their water forgetting its own name.
And the earth, unblinking,
pulls its children back into itself
no drum, no prayer
only the slow, dry swallow
of a hunger older than light.