Published in Padma Meghna Jamuna: Modern Poetry from Bangladesh (2010), edited by Kaiser Haq and published by the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature.

My poems belong to the young boy

from whose throat blood drips constantly like clusters of red roses
My poems belong to the young man
between whose lips golden ravings hum like a swarm of bees

My poems belong to the young girl
who glimpses the severed head on a silver platter covered in
saffron cloth

My poems belong to the young woman
who slits open the flesh beneath her breasts with a blade
seeking the blue scarf wound around the neck of a gilded bird

My poems belong to those wanderers
whose crazy beds leap into midnight alleys terrorized
by moonlight

My poems belong to that scruffy-haired madman
whose flying window falls as it becomes as cold as a
sudden scream, as long and shapeless as ice

My poems belong to no one else
they’re mine, mine, mine, only mine.