Borders: a suite

Artwork by Atif Khan and Damon Kowarski. Image Courtesy ArtChowk Gallery

Akyarlar

The metric system forgets
but each kilometre has its own distance.

Some inhabit a fingertip.

Some fit into clouds or breaths.

Some are measured by calling cards or passing trees.

Others stretch the length of lifetimes.

North of Arlit

here
by the asymptotes of care
bodies rust into dates

only winds mark the mounds
of seared sand
caressing
consoling
returning remittances of sleepless doubt

Tajura

This is a home
This is a back
This is a blanket
This is a hand
This is a cousin
This is a carpet
This is a road
This is a song
This is a story
This is a truck
This is strength
This is autumn
This is a friend
This is a wait
This is a toy
This is air
This is a name, yours
This is a sea
This is a promise
This is a wake
This is

Maritsa

a beach boat’s carcass
rests among the reeds
holding a few breaths

aside
wooded banks tilt into the water
their earth worn by
Greeks Armenians Jews

this is a place of passage
silent
but for the charge of past
and the endless flow
narrating
a frail hope:
that one day
we will learn freedom from frontiers
~ Daniel Voskoboynik

Daniel Voskoboynik‘s work has previously appeared in the Mays Anthology, Resonancias, and Poetica Magazine, as well as The Missing Slate.