War

1971, Noakhali  Noakhali is a landmine in her memory that only reels backward. Sits like a land   spreading its river of sorrow. A land thrice  partitioned. Each time she shuts her eyes,    a time bomb explodes in the scratch pad of  her brain. What happened to Zoya, my daughter?    Who knows where she went? Who knows  where she sleeps? And her brother?   What have you done to them? Who’ll bring my  message to them? In the naked sunlight of a    Kolkata camp, she sits, sticking to the lamppost,  like a flapping poster. Raped, like her land.    Nameless, counting the scars of hell. The stories she saved from 1971, knotted in the end of her sari, squeezed   into the tiniest of knots. Lest she may forget.  Stories of people gone missing. Like the lace    torn off the hem of her petticoat. Their white  gasps before death, countless times she    remembers the names. And the frequent deaths.  Like the abandoned pages of history, long archived.    Her abused flesh knows no hope to escape.  It sits like a torn kite, forever exiled on the tramlines.    This poem forms a part of my forthcoming poetry collection based on the theme of War, migration, survival and hope. It depicts the plight of the women refugees who are most of the time caught up in the gender-based violence as they flee their land. Photo Credit: Pixabay