Unsent Postcards
from Vermont

Hafsa Zulfiqar

originally published Winter 2024

Dear Baba

Winter is so slow 

here, you have told me to be
grateful to the trees but loneliness is 
quiet like the bench overlooking the night-
blooming jasmines you planted—
knees soiled with watery monsoon dirt—

and abandoned.


Dear Baba

Here I am, listening to

a White man reading elegies, so hungry
my stomach growls at his father’s passing.
Before I saw the picture of your Iftar spread,
a small appearance of mother’s hands,
I had forgotten to cry 

my daily cry. 

Dear Baba

I hope you like

your debt spreadsheet
on Eid. There was a ghost,
I remembered to follow 
all your instructions to pray it away 
but in my dreams prayers don’t work on 

me away from home.


Dear Baba

I keep waiting 

for spring to break in
through the frames, on waves of linen.
Why does God forget, like you, 
some of us have to touch 
the grass 

to feel safe.


Hafsa Zulfiqar hails from Pakistan and graduated from Bennington College where she studied literature and psychology. Her work, which has received the WNDB Walter Grant, two Best of the Net nominations and a Pushcart nomination, explores brown identity, dreams, language, liminality, and, above all, the notion of home. It can be found or is forthcoming in AAWW: The Margins, Pleiades, The Offing, Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Maine Review, & elsewhere. She serves on the staff of Brooklyn Poets, Muzzle Magazine, & Pollux Journal. You can find her on Twitter @HafsaZUnar and Instagram @vibingwithabook


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