Dragon Horse

First, Tanvir’s father, his skin as blue as the sky, sits on the serpent.

He holds a conch shell in his right hand,

And in his left, he holds a discus.

At first, he holds the conch shell high.

The coarse yarn mat – dyed with liquid sunlight by his mother and threaded together by Tanvir – scrapes against his tunic as the fresh scent of his book’s fluttering pages fills his nostrils.

In the kitchen, their pot rattles on the stove, overflowing with mustard-seasoned spinach.

Malhoka flips through her feathers,

Her face scarlet like his father’s scarf.

She doesn’t trill, but she still stops by their windowsill.

Slowly, the shell lowers.

Their coarse yarn mat – dyed with dust and debris from the concrete crumbling around them – scrapes against Tanvir’s tattered tunic as his book’s worn pages fray at its spine.

In the kitchen, their rusted pot rattles on the stove, half-filled with leftover chickpeas, stale spices, and congealed gravy.

Malhoka flips through her feathers,

Her face scarlet like her beak

Now she eats bodies, not seeds

But she still stops at their windowsill.

The discus rises.

Their knees scrape against the ground as they roll their coarse yarn mat and prop it – their rusted pot among the cardboard boxes beside it – against the splintered frame of their tiny door, its hinges now tarnished.

Malhoka doesn’t stop by their windowsill,

Only her feathers fall onto it.

The warplanes trill.

The serpent sits on Tanvir’s father, his scales as black as the clouds.

He holds the discus high,

And he drops the shell into the depths.

And his mother whispers with the south wind,

“Get up, Tanvir.

We have to go.”