Two Voices
Poet to Friend
If I believed
My caring would relieve your pain
I would be by you forever
But I know
My sympathy is in vain
I do not have the cure you need
Only you can heal yourself
Only you
Friend to Poet
If I believed
There were a cure
Would I ask you
To be by me forever
Is it possible I seek
Something else altogether
Only you can think that through
Only you
by Anjum Altaf
from More Transgressions
LG Publishers, Delhi, 2021
___________
mire hamdam mire dost.
Translations in Shiv Kumar, Victor Kierman