COLLECTING HAIL – Laboni Islam

[EAST PAKISTAN]

She sets down her metal pail,
its eager mouth
open to the sky —

her father says
they could make ice cream,
and so, she scuttles

and stoops,
scoops with small hands the hail,
listens for that clink against
the pail’s interior.

The same hail
is hitting roofs of thatch, of clay,
of tin and iron sheets,

years before
she learns the weather
of loss and grief.

Laboni Islam was born in Canada to Bangladeshi parents. Her poem “Lunar Landing, 1966” was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize (2017). Her poetry appears in canthius, wildness, The Rialto, and The Unpublished City Anthology (Book*hug Press, 2017).