Dust
accumulated in corners of her room melts into dreams as she walks past cordons of trees swaying with the breeze of mum’s lullaby. This night is thick with sorrows housed in her paintings — those she poured herself into after father’s passing. Often these paintings remind her of days spent in a dusty city in the foothills of Aravalli. And certain images crawl over: memories of cars slowing down mid-alley, pulling their tinted windows down, cat-calling, (a sad mellow in the eyes of a passer-by, as mindfucked as her), asking for directions. Winter rain runs off stories of grief, all this while curiously collected in soft crevices of her skin. Sometimes this happens, then that. She loses track of time. The sweet earthen pot overflows, guilty with words and images too dry to swallow.
a dusty city in the foothills of Aravalli: New Delhi
I Wake Up
with you moist on my cheeks.
Your drudged arms wrapped in cellophane
snatch at the many morning suns
pin-holed across a cascade of
foliage decorating our verandah.
My body is an aquarium where I bury
experiences fossilised to be later used
as metaphors. I remember a child’s eye
peering through vintage green marbles,
marvelling at frozen time.
I denounce my bed, move towards
a drawer of discarded photos.
The shards of glass under
my feet bleed rhododendrons
shooting blasphemous kisses at you.
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One-Sentence Poems
Touch
My cheek rests on
your tender palms as
my head collects happy images
of light melting through
this window drawing patterns
onto the street below
sending cryptic messages to
your heart locked up in an attic
haunted by spirits that play
with the light and shadow
of your mind.
Dawn
strikes open
a placid sky into
one half struggling with
self-doubt wetting the pillow
all night, and another,
snuggling bedsheets
soaking the warmth of
mother’s womb.
Endless
I have mourned
you long enough
like the frozen eyes
of a dead fish in search
of its soul amidst
the gaping vastness
of a grey sky.
(Shamayita Sen is a Delhi-based poet, lecturer and PhD research candidate (Department of English, University of Delhi)
