---

I’ll show you an ordinary woman,

who surrenders her destiny

and declares her chosen life 

dispensable in a single moment.

What would you make of this woman 

who wears her grief in so elegant 

a manner, her sorrow stuns every 

room she inhabits.

Here is a woman with a talent 

for uncloaking misery, unearthing

ghosts hiding in corners, and 

finding them an open window.

Some say, beware an ordinary woman,

one who creates sanctity in solitude,

one that grieves in silence and quietens 

herself when voice should prevail. 

Beware a woman, who digs so deep 

for survival within the marrow 

of her bones, she astonishes even herself 

with the courage she exhumes. 

(After Nadia Hashimi’s book, A House Without Windows)

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Shikha Sawhney Lamba is a jewellery designer and poet living in Hong Kong. She is the co-editor of an online magazine, Coffee and Conversations. Shikha’s poetry has been published in journals globally. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net. She is a 2023 Pushcart prize nominee.