It was crafted for someone younger
this band
circle
this moment in infinity—

promise of a time that would last
someone with fingers thicker, fuller
yet also narrow, tapering

who, when the time came
with a small fire
breaking out inside him
and wanderlust in his eyes—
set out
not unlike Columbus

on a journey though by air
relishing the propulsion
buoyed up by expectancy
heart lifting
as the plane lifted—
with a hush in the cabin—
up above cloud
into thinner air

And after much gyration
and tramping across streets
with everywhere a sense
of an arch gentility

or an orderly riotousness
reached the place appointed
where sloped roads led
to a generous sea

and a slit-eyed man
stood, patient, by the pier
and Alcatraz
grim, insular, loomed

There it sat in the palm
of an outstretched hand
a small square blue
emitting its own
magically contained light
waiting to lead him
where it would

across years, decades
deserts of time
to come to rest at last
at this dusty turnstile.

Adrian A Husainis the author of two collections of sonnets, Knife of the Tide and Italian Window, and a novel, The Dreamwork of Lisa D. A selection of his poems was published under the title Desert Album as part of Pakistan’s Jubilee in English series. Educated in England and Switzerland, he is a winner of the prestigious Guinness Poetry Prize.

Note: This poem is presented as part of a curatorial collaboration with The Peepul Press, an independent publishing house in Lahore (@thepeepulpress on Instagram).