Imran Boe Khan
Everything Is Ripe for Transformation
I let myself believe
we could be rendered
something beautiful, reshaped, adored
back to 2004 when bourbon whispered
endearments to someone else and
I was naive to the endings inside
those bottles. When I watch you
melting my last empty O’Donnell
into glinting satellites, I wonder if this might be
rebirth, the life taken all summoned back
to me in smoke. The smell of your art snags
at the back of my throat. It rises from the pan
like fevered prayer. Each morning,
a lamp is added to your mantelpiece,
my catalogue of guilt, they are
vulnerabilities I can’t forget.
The glass still emits a terrible light
in our nighttime sky
and all you can do is show me all you know
of transformation, hope your tiny wicks of hope
curl a fire into the wild in me
that cannot stop moving.
Imran Boe Khan reads “Everything Is Ripe for Transformation”
Imran Boe Khan is an Amnesty International speaker and a lecturer at Bournemouth University. A winner of the Thomas Hardy Award, Imran’s work has appeared in places such as Sixth Finch, The Rumpus, The Cortland Review and The Bitter Oleander.