Hibah Shabkhez

House, Haunted By House

My smiles of welcome faltered long ago.
Like the others in my row, I glisten
Still. I gleam of prosperity. But—my
Garden is watered with the tears that flow
From the eyes of stooping ghosts. I listen
For the creaking gates, for the final cry
Of a child racing home—

To the house I can never become. Shed
Like the skin of a snake, like the cracked husk
Of beaten rice, it followed these waxen
Wights across the sea, and settled instead
In my freshly cemented bricks. The dusk
Masks the silent war between us to pen
The rest of their story

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer and photographer from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Penine Platform, Rust and Moth, Think Journal, The Font, The Raven’s Muse Magazine, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

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