Atlantis

The news is the orchestra at dinner

the symphony rages at the border

my father glued to the screen, spoons hang limp without any order

as the nations begin to suspect one another.

The voices raise, the presenters scramble to strangle the opposition

the meat curry gets cold with time, hands don’t recognise hands across the field. 

For the dessert my grandfather’s voice quivers as he begins to say

what it would be like to see home once again,

and I know what he means is what remains of it

a home that hasn't invited us again.

I have googled Sindh too many times 

to know the bridges and rivers he has memorised 

to still not know the house by river beaming with a childhood 

of cold dips in the lake and breakfast of flaky pakwan 

hinged with running with a sack and small bag, 

on the midnight meat train.

Sky turns to grass to bid farewell

to the house that cannot run anymore, to the wheat fields uprooted of  palms interlocked

My father is at a loss for words, the violin strings another tune looted of identity, of lands. 

There aren’t flights to reconstruct the city of memories.

There aren’t flights to reach a lover shaking hands with a bullet in their palm. 

My grandfather dreams of nation of arid lands scripted from from right to left, 

of languages I half-heartedly speak, of a script that refuses to unbutton for my generation. 

Somebody switches off the T.V.

I begin to acknowledge we are losing this history, 

my grandfather and I have played too much carom to know

between fact and fiction this is all I will ever know of heritage.