Poetry

"...bound by years of love and shared experience..."

"...Funny how dreams don’t play by the same rules..."

"...magical aura born from a noble soul..."

"...my aloneness leaves me unfurled..."

"...let us first take these 'baby steps' into forevermore..."

"...a dogged dog bred to be discerning and bold..."

"...that day after that terrible storm faded..."

"Love is like a lobotomy..."

"...What I have done to change man’s trajectory, for better or worse, remains anonymous..."

"...The sequins off my dress scattered on the floor..."

"...wearing a uniform until it becomes your familiar..."

"...in a thronged square you are in focus again..."

"...Like a king at the family table..."

"...Love that transcends..."

"...I'm here to pour furious facts forth..."

Shaikh started writing at the age of eight and has since written over two hundred poems. He writes in English and Urdu, and his poems have been featured in international publications.

Nishi Pulugurtha is an academic and writer based in Kolkata.

"...I think I have one..."

"...The items we carry are not left at the side of the road..."

"...they remain stranded on an island engirdled by sharks the size of tankers..."

Short but universal...

"...hide behind a scarecrow grin among a cornfield of smiles..."

"...and isn't my backyard, no matter how much time we spend mowing the lawn and weeding..."

"...His wispy Spanish accent alights like a butterfly on the living room furniture—..."

"...we traded jokes, paraded skills..."

"...lines that have changed their direction, like dissident travelers at crossroads..."

"...the font of translucent light..."

"The sun in the east Is red, crimson..."

"It has been seven years since you departed..."

"...wanders the halls of midnight..."