Rizwan Akhtar divides his time between Aberdeen and Essex. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Essex. His poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry NZ, Wasafiri, Postcolonial Text, decanto, Poesia, PAK, tinfoildresses, and have been anthologised in Poetry Forward Press, UK.
Decision
I have seen half of Britain
from a rain pattered window.
The nearest tree is stripped,
pavements settle for a mossy outfit,
winter deposits a rusty stanza
on the kitchen's sink, lines curved and tricky
as if time measures itself through rhymes,
a squeezed insect tangles in the gauze door,
unclipped, the wind throws off the washing
ruffles the tuft on my balding head
and I think of other places.
The rain falls and the windows
are vague and I return
to that snugly rocking chair.
Rizwan Akhtar
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