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PoetryMarch 12, 2013

Repentance, California

"My Heart Skipped A Beat" by Mohsin Shafi

“My Heart Skipped A Beat” by Mohsin Shafi

Parked up to check the map and its tangled veins

of intersections  on the road so long and straight

it seemed to go right into the sky,

 

and perhaps that’s why I stopped there –

to appreciate the mauve dusk of July; mountains

the dirty thumbprints of Loki  smeared against the horizon.

 

I felt my body disappearing into the view,

and not having to give my name to the horses

or the crow, as the woman just passing through.

 

Cars across the field were burning. The heat –

even a mile away – I felt it deep in my skin

like the travel of blood.

 

The engines ignited.  Wheels rolled aflame –

cotton reels of fire-thread, the spool of gasoline silkworms;

cars burned to their skeletons, no trace of a driver or a crime.

 

I carried on to the ocean I’d only seen pictures of,

never quite able to imagine the blue properly,

in the way I tried to imagine Neptune.

 

I had to meet the Pacific, understand the blue

of it for myself, for the clarity of eons

and the tide’s constancy to become clear.

 

I hadn’t been swimming for years. I didn’t think

I could go that far, maybe just walk the surf,

cover my Achilles.

 

When I reached the coast.

When I could go no further west

without drowning.

 

I stood on the dunes with the wind lifting my hair

into a mane of yellow fire and watched the blue waves

break against rocks, lone survivors of millennia,

 

the water’s grace-test, the sun’s azimuth,

I knew I was cornered, backed up against the ocean

with everything I’d run from stepping forward.

 

~Jennifer Martin

 

Jennifer Martin studied creative writing at Bath Spa University, where she also went on to do the poetry MA. She received both first class honours and a distinction, respectively.  Her poems have appeared in magazines such as Ambit, The Rialto and The Warwick Review. In 2011, she had a poem submitted for the Forward Prize’s single poem category.

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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