Three Held Breaths

Sunnah Khan

before your funeral they rode you out in a wooden frame

a conveyor of arms and legs wrapped in white

it was like on a snow day when we’d wake

early and squint at where the garden used to be

I put your photo in a box next to my mother

you live amongst the things I rarely touch

the kirby grips and the tiger balm

the postcard of a greek island from an ex-boyfriend

your closed eyes laced in black thread

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Sunnah Khan is a multi-talented Scottish Pakistani poet, creative facilitator and filmmaker living in London. Her debut pamphlet, I Don’t Know How to Forgive You When You Make No Apology For is Haunting was published by Roughtrade Books in 2020. Most recently she won a commission to reimagine Scottish myth and was awarded funding by Women of the World Festival to develop and run six weeks of workshops with young survivors & clinical psychologists. She is also part of the poetry collective 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. The collective came together in 2017 and were published by Femzine (2018) and Roughtrade Books (2020). As well as taking a 5 star sell out show to the Edinburgh Fringe (2019), they have performed at the Tate, British Library, London Literary Festival (2021), were commissioned to create work for Quentin Blake’s Exhibition at The Foundling Musuem (2021), have performed at numerous festivals including Byline and Prima Donna, and were featured in British Vogue last year. Sunnah has worked across the BBC and Channel 4 in production and development, from Dispatches Born Homeless, BBC Two’s Generation Gifted to developing shows for Netflix and Vice Studios, and most recently working on a national suicide prevention campaign for a charity.

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