Drone Attacks in Pakistan

when the clouds race with the wind

on rugged shoulders of mountains

earthbound make earthly plans

a schoolgirl writes a story

in which the future is a space,

an explosive takes an arm

a child kicks a football with

his artificial limb, an old man

waits after his family dunked

in a fresh salvo, headlines appease,

the rest is a poem in prose devoid

of meters, drunk on language

politicians’ egos rub off, people

dream taking sorties on crutches.

Rizwan Akhtar is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. His debut collection of Poems Lahore, I Am Coming (2017) is published by Punjab University Press. He has published poems in well-established poetry magazines in the UK, the US, India, Canada, and New Zealand. He was a part of the workshop on poetry with Derek Walcott at the University of Essex in 2010.