Irteqa Khan
autophagy as an-nahl
after “bee and woman: an anatomy” by anne simpson
when we will something to happen, all that we say is, ‘be,’ and it is - al quran, 16:40 لحنلا .i
a teaspoon’s worth
of an errant, compound gaze
at some spiritual waypoint
i have come
as a colony, a comb, a cure
لحنلا .ii
cartographies of nectar
with a lifetime of dance
beautiful and giving as
the balming music i foraged are
my dirty wings transposing
into a waxy nest while
i dream of flight
as the nexus of survival
لحنلا .iii
the hive is an empathy
a paracosm of sticky stingers
where my body unbottles
as pollen, indulgent cells
carrying me seismically
with the disintegrating power
of indelicate growth
consuming and creating
as an entirety gathering life
لحنلا , لحنلا , لحنلا .iv
over and over and over
when we will something to happen, all that we say is, ‘be,’ and it is - al quran, 16:40 لحنلا .i
a teaspoon’s worth
of an errant, compound gaze
at some spiritual waypoint
i have come
as a colony, a comb, a cure
لحنلا .ii
cartographies of nectar
with a lifetime of dance
beautiful and giving as
the balming music i foraged are
my dirty wings transposing
into a waxy nest while
i dream of flight
as the nexus of survival
لحنلا .iii
the hive is an empathy
a paracosm of sticky stingers
where my body unbottles
as pollen, indulgent cells
carrying me seismically
with the disintegrating power
of indelicate growth
consuming and creating
as an entirety gathering life
لحنلا , لحنلا , لحنلا .iv
over and over and over
Irteqa Khan (she/her) is a Muslim-Canadian writer and poet from Peshawar, Pakistan. She holds an Honours degree in History and an MA in Political Studies from the University of Saskatchewan and is a first-year Ph.D. in Political Science student at York University. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears in L’Éphémère Review, Spring Magazine, Homology Lit, ANMLY, Honey Literary, and Aôthen Magazine among others, and is forthcoming in śvās magazine and The Hyacinth Review. Irteqa’s debut poetry chapbook, rēza rēza, was published with Gap Riot Press in 2020.