A Bloodthirsty Hound

by Abish Qamar

My love dents in the calluses of my palms / and there it stays, a remnant of the past / The

coincidence in the love I bestowed upon you / and the one you embraced / is but a hypothesis

/ a conjecture / an unworthy delight.

My love is a diluting agent / unfurling hollowness from its mantle / like a gleam of burnished

gold / in its subdued glow / I keep it neat / trimmed in its subtlety / A mere veil upon a cryptic

device / a travesty / a disguise.

My love is going stale / a bloodthirsty hound in its remains / It is, alas, a rotten work in its

demise / and I know not of gore / were it not my own words / the beget of my blood to yours /

To suggest it was all molasses / licked bruises / the taste of my own tenderness.