folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
We pull away from the mountain and the path
meanders to form the letter s
signifying the beginning of breathing
together through the night. All the river creatures,
carp and beavers alike, exit their burrows to swim
or crawl to the first bed they happen upon. I whisper
to you in the humidity. How it takes
the shape of scepters,
of jungle cats. So detailed we can make out
each strand of fur on its magnificent
pride. The ghosts inhabiting each miniscule hole
left by a nail once hammered into the wall
feel the first semblance of rest in centuries
and emerge.
Everything has a point of origin and the beginning
of calm starts the moment one of us falls asleep,
really sleeping, with little to no dreams
because the dream is to be within touching distance
and here we are, always finding
new ways to say goodbye to the night.
First published in Augur Magazine
My current writing project is fiction! I’m at the tail end of putting together a manuscript of speculative short stories that explore themes of heat catastrophes, climate crisis, Pakistani folklore, and the presence of magic in our urban spaces. In these stories, a woman turns into a cup of tea to escape her abusive boyfriend; a man facing stalking from an ex-girlfriend finds a protection story passed down through women in his family, and a woman finds a tragic folktale that eerily resembles her own life, and fears the same outcome occurring to her.
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual
artist. She is the author of Heliotropia (Brick Books 2024; winner of
the Archibald Lampman Award, and shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, the
Raymond Souster Award, and the Ottawa Book Award) and MONUMENT
(Brick Books 2022; shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award). She has been
twice longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, and was selected as a Writer’s Trust
of Canada Rising Star in 2023. See her work at manahilbandukwala.com.
