Time - Hafsa Mumtaz

Content note: graphic/unsettling imagery

sunlight melts beige into the clouds' eyes

I blink

my fingers fetal pink, swish past

the typeface lips of the book

the dust in my mouth tastes of tombstones

flakes of sand surrounds the sunny horizon

like flies

sucking pale nipples of juice on rotten mangoes in a dumpster

colors elude and osculate it grotesquely

phosphenes in pink, gold, green evaporate from neon to clarity

the pages of the book that I read, perspire

with Lucretia's sorrow, and my eyes stop there as chivalry demands

the black on my nails is patent like boots

the horizon wilts into a butchery of horses:

bars of brown, bars of crimson red, now bars of grey on my book.

like a tender glimmer of gold is the ecstasy of time

Originally published under the author’s one-off penname Tali Zorah Vas Normandy, by Visual Verse in 2023. From the author: “Additionally, the poem is ekphrastic - based on the image prompt given by the magazine for that month.”

Hafsa Mumtaz, 26, is a Pakistani poet, a The Best of the Net nominee for the year 2023, and an M.Phil. English Literature scholar. Her poems have appeared in Visual Verse, The Rising Phoenix Review, Journey of the Heart, The New Verse News, Poetry Potion, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Sandy River Review, Couplet Poetry, Corvus Review, and HookMagazine among others. She also co-authored "Bewildered Souls" Anthology Vol. I by The Black Inks Publication.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hafsa-mumtaz-a229a61a2

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_hafsa_1999?igsh=MXcwbGNmcmFrZWk3aQ==