Post-Traumatic by Moniza Alvi

Not now said the mind to the brain
Not yet

And it cloaked itself in amnesia
And time curled up serpent-like -
its dusty mosaics
cemented together

Time – the cobra
waiting to unleash
its venom

Not yet, not yet

But under pressure, the mind
started to leak
vermillion drops

That woman jostling you in a crowd -
you could drive your fist
like a bus

right through her

Talk to yourself
Talk to yourself

You don't need to do anything

It's expected
the fuck-offs fired from your mouth
the avalanche
of words

Until at last you made a clearing
set the house, the plot of land
in some kind of order, little
by little

Planted a flower
more open-faced

which now you name
tentatively -

calm-in-the-storm

love-of-life

Reproduced by kind permission of Bloodaxe

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. Bloodaxe have recently published Split World: Poems 1990 – 2005, which includes poems from her five previous collections, The Country at My Shoulder (1993); A Bowl of Warm Air (1996); Carrying My Wife (2000) and How The Stone Found Its Voice (2005). The Country at My Shoulder was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, and Carrying My Wife was a PBS Recommendation in 2000. Alvi received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002, and Europa (Bloodaxe) was the PBS Choice in Summer 2008