Lahore, Easter Sunday, 2016

The love you take
creates entropy after you —
limbs, seared flesh,
the taste of blood lancing through air,
toy shrapnel littering the grassy knoll,
almost like dew.
Later,
we attempt to contain it
in coffins with body parts
covered in bolts of fabric
and arranged neatly in human form.
The love you take is equal
to the infinite depth of the hospital wall
that holds each survivor’s vacant gaze,
to each particle of earth
that blankets scores of new graves,
to every rosary bead prayed upon,
to the abiding reverberation of
our whispered plea: no, no, no, no

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Noorulain Noor is a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and a two time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry has appeared in Spillway, Sugar Mule, Santa Clara Review, Muzzle and other journals. Raised in Lahore, Pakistan. Noorulain now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry explores the broad themes of identity, multiculturalism, and the immigrant experience.