Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a published and prize-winning poet and a professor of English at
Montclair State University in New Jersey. She is the author of a book of critical essays on
several writers from South Asia; the title of this book is, Cultural Imperialism and the
Indo-English Novel, which was published in 1993 by Penn State Press. Fawzia is also co-
editor of a recent volume published by Duke University Press, called The Pre-
Occupation of Postcolonial Studies (2000). She is a singer and performer trained in
North Indian Classical music, and is in the process of working on a memoir entitled,
"Sahelian: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani-style," of which one chapter was
published as a story called "Sam's Secret," in the July 2000 issue of Himal Magazine. Her
current research project will culminate in a book on Pakistani Alternative Theatre and the
Women's Movement.
Pomegranate Sari
I tell my daughter
I'll leave to trek
morrocan mustaphas
beckon
moustaches twirling
on handlebars
they carried mom off
waving goodbye in her
pomegranate
sari
thunderclouds gather
my mother in dreams
she knits
stories of baby birds
weeping in their nest
5/30/01
Smell
Your breath smells
like onions frying in hot oil
waiting for the garlic
to splatter and fan
the flames of fire
desire crushes coconuts
into a milky white paste
i ingest with
a straw
chocolate rose-buds
covered in caramel
dew-drops I lick
off the blades of
green grass
the sweat off your socks
the curry in a hurry
desis sink their fingers in
to remind them of home
the parka you lived in
when I knew you in Boston
the cockroach I crunched
in a mugful of tea
the whiff of perfume when you caught me
in a dream
I woke up with
another smell in the room
2001
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