in bangladesh

by Nuri Bhuiyan

in a country

where an ambulance passes 5 starving men on the way to save someone from stroke

where I can hear sitting by the window of my khalu’s flat the “allahu akbar”s of a

man dragging himself across the street, legs bent outward from the knee

where I stare blankly at my journal in the deep of the night, too tired to describe my

the ache in my chest

where my khala depends on aging men to pedal her to the local market

where a government slaughters its own brilliant students over a protest for safer

roads

where one cannot walk without encountering an outstretched, cupped hand

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in this country

where so much is wrong

who cares about trees?

no one.

meanwhile

bengali lungs cough up ash colors

bengali skins spoil in poisoned air

bengali bodies rot quicker

and bengali eyes shimmer for a paradise long gone.

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