You were innocent, wanting
fire for livelihood.
Licked you charred, didn't it
feel liquor-sweet, the waste
it made?
You're paying for it
since I last could stand
to look at you.
After all, the promise of warmth
sent me here too. Kneeling
in a mispronounced room,
I have been thinking back
to the first day:
the sun peeling your back,
the ants eating your feet.
A hero will come
to bite you anew. Finally will
sediment the blood which
doubles around. Your only crime
to see in two?
Well, only a half-life threatens
the more for more, which shows up
hungry at the door.
Let it tear through the door.
Let it try to take.
The fire behind eyes of any life
mazes me awake.
Avleen Kaur Mokha (“Mirabel”) is a Montreal-based poet who grew up in Mumbai, India. Mirabel holds a B.A. in English Literature and Linguistics from McGill University, and was the 2019 winner of McGill’s Peterson Memorial Prize for Creative Writing. Presently, Mirabel edits poetry and prose for Persephone’s Daughters, a literary magazine dedicated to survivors of abuse. Mirabel’s poems have appeared in Déraciné Magazine, Dream Pop, and Siblini among others.