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This poem is taken from PN Review 145, Volume 28 Number 5, May - June 2002.

Five Poems Moniza Alvi

How the World Split in Two

Was it widthways or lengthways,
a quarrel with the equator?
Did the rawness of the inside sparkle?

Only this is true:
There was an arm on one side
and a hand on the other,
a thought on one side
and a hush on the other.

And a luminous tear
carried on the back of a beetle
went backwards and forwards
from one side to the other.


How the Answers Got their Questions

The most difficult task of all was not
finding new questions or harder questions,
dipping your wrists into the blood of questions.
...


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