Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Bakhtiyar Ali

My secret, her secret conceived you, Love created you: kneel and prostrate yourself to no one, You who are conceived of imagination’s secrets, of being’s enigma These are lines no other human being but me knows or understands, the blasphemous verse recited by the ghazal-speaking youth on the night he was drunk. They are the same lines he recited when sated after intercourse. The mullah who baptised you was a religious scholar and a friend. We fought over and debated matters of faith and the hidden aspects of Sharia. He was a keeper of secrets and knew something of the torments of my heart. I made him swear that he would bring me the secret

of that poem and write down for me the lines inscribed on your delicate flesh. He was an adept code reader, someonewho could resolve mysteries. No one else could have read the secret of that line. That day I was on fire from morning to evening. I oscillated between fire and tears and, when he arrived with the lines, I was in agony. He was astonished at my tears and moans, and as soon as he said the first line, I recited the full couplets to him. He bid me goodbye in great sadness for this was a mystery he could not resolve. Who could understand it? Who? You were my son and my evidence is the verse drowned in your blood and your flesh. I am your father, an imaginary father. You are my son, my imaginary son.

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