Hamein bauhat saare phool chaahiyen – ہمیں بہت سارے پھول چاہییں

We need a whole lot of flowers

to gather at the feet of the dead

We need a whole lot of flowers

to cover the faces of corpses in gunny-sacs

A whole annual flower show

should be preserved in Edhiís morgue

to keep at the foot of graves

dug in the police graveyard for the designated dead

A spray of flowers from the balcony in bloom

for the woman shot dead

at the bus stop

Sky-blue flowers

to tickle

the two youths lost to eternal sleep in a yellow cab

Dried flowers

to caparison

and restore a mutilated corpse

We need a whole lot of flowers

for the wounded

languishing in clinics

that neither have the Japanese rock

nor any other variety of garden

We need a whole lot of flowers

for one half of them will succumb to their wounds

We need a forest of nocturnal flowers

for those who could not sleep for the report of gunfire

we need a whole lot of flowers

for a whole lot of rueful people

we need anonymous flowers

to cloak the stripped girl

we need a whole lot of flowers

We need a whole lot of flowers

on a whole lot of dancing creepers

that we could train to screen this city

Translated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi