Behind Mohd. Jinnah Hospital

People never went there.

Eagles swooped from the West
Over Mohd. Jinnah's head
His face contorted, with the worries

Maybe of being called the Father of a Nation

That lay in tatters, with its spirit alive

Or just because of the odour of animal faeces

Of used syringes, of uneaten food,

Of dead hopes, of lost words.

Or maybe the clangour of the crows

Blackened, yet trying to peck their way

To survival amidst all the eagles and cows.
Or maybe it was his own children he could hear

Walking down the narrow alleyway behind

Noses covered, eyes scrunched in disgust

At the Government's inefficacy, or maybe just

Because the hospital blocked the light

And they couldn't read.

People never went there.

Yet one night, in the darkness, Rashid tiptoed, 

He gleamed in the moonlight, a Farishta

He bent and dropped a dark moving bag

And a trail of silver perspiration. Until

The next morning, or maybe the morning after that

The eagles and the crows had rejoiced 

Mohd. Jinnah's brows seemed more furrowed.

Women were free in his nation, and he saw how.