Windwise

Sumera Saleem

June 7, 2026

The wind presides over its own kingdom

of protest, cracking through locked doors

and silent dreams mistaken for peace.

It laughs over fences and borders, pretences and orders.

No regard for zones and enclosures,

No allegiance to land and its anthems,

It sings in its own unruly grammar of rebellion.

It’s always its time 

to slash the curtains of the big theatre,

A question that rattles the teeth of a fake order,

An electrified storm wild-roving along its frenzy vortex,

All to dare to our faces with what is disobediently impure. 

We must be slow and careful

when the wind mournfully shrieks and shouts,

stabbing the awful icy time, 

dismantling all straight lines.

Sumera Saleem is a PhD student in Blue Humanities at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne campus), lecturer in the department of English language and literature, Sargodha University, Sargodha, and gold medalist in English literature from the University of the Punjab for the session 2013-15. Her poems have appeared in Tejascovido, Langdon Review published by Tarleton State University, USA, Blue Minaret, Lit Sphere, Surrey Library UK, The Text Journal, The Ghazal Page, Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters, and Word Magazine. A few more are forthcoming in international and national anthologies.