Ghostly tenants

My father speaks in a dismantled language that goes up in 
smoke. 
He leaves broken edges of questions wedged into corners of
empty rooms he walks past.
Enter smoke churning, pervading, answering. 
In my house we sit at the table with ghosts. 
We offer tea and biscuits.
They accept, soundlessly.
These temporary tenants shatter the glass in my mirror
to tell tales of towns of timbre on fire. 
Through kaleidoscopic images. 
The words that fell out of burning bodies my father fled. 
Fires bellowing, a little boy running. Wind curdling like
dissipating smoke.
Running, from nothing to nothing. 
What goes around comes around
and rests—  
The country, silent
Because quiet men don't whisper, but haunt. 
Haunting, rumbling, smoke rising
from chimneys of a million homes.
Pieces of ballot paper in flames flowing
turbulent smoke
The looters, afire. Screaming. 
Begins again. 
I'm sorry, my poetry is only a stream of apologies I inherit from
my father. In his burden I share. His vow:
To remember. 
So together we house the ghosts that fought for no home. 
Together we house the smoke. 

Waziha Aziz is a writer from Chattogram, Bangladesh.