shall i compare thee to a summer's day?
a Pakistani summer; heavy, thick on our bodies,
our panting bodies, vulnerable
against our own Sun the Sun wrought lethal
by poverty, loneliness
(an 80 year old woman withers under the sun, quiet
in death, and they found her much later. it was too hot to
go outside)

shall i compare thee to a summer's day you
intimate to my body, the currency of metaphors, you
how do i say you you, your claw clench ghost grasp
you leave me breathless, breathless, drawing air, scraping against
the atmosphere, that oxygen in the composition somewhere for a minute
doubtful, breathless; a wrench, a wrench, so intimate, you,
the intimacy of
disease

you, pushing world to daze, disease,
you, calling for a name, disease,
what are names against you, you, pervasive like life itself,
so what are names against you: trauma, depression, anxiety
you, who language recedes against
you, shall i compare,
you, the lethal summer, eclipse, tornado,
you,
companion.