After the last drop of chemo Has dripped through the IV The nurses flush the site Ice pack the swollen hand And remove all the evidence You look at me with those eyes. Silent, wide and expressive, “Can we go home now?” We cannot, the doctors Want you bound to this place To this bed…
Category: family
the mountains, the mountains…
These are the mountains, the misty mountains where the rocks wait, to sing in chorus, frowning music into a scar. Here there are mountains, closed, misty mountains they do not care if we aren’t. Or are, for that’s how it is and always were. For in the larger scheme of things, life is not life,…
To Rubic (on turning 30).
Can mere words ever be enough for a son who taught me the art of taking myself less seriously, and made me a child again! The son who filled my world with fresh pots of paint colours I never knew existed bleeding into my grey refrain. Those unforgettable drives, longer swims, “the dark room”, getting…
Christmas 2021
The last few poems leapt from my arms they have minds of their own, they want to undo all that was undone in the year gone by, they want to skip over bodies that floated through my life. I built a dam to silence them but they return in gurgles of laughter, ridiculing my efforts…
To Mesho (returning from Kalimati Jn. a.k.a. Tatanagar)
I don’t like how you lie there But your eyes search me out Looking for a familiar face Among a sea of servants. I like the way you talk Memories from the old earth Your youth, my father, the stories That scramble to be heard. I watch you as you try To lift those atrophied…
To Isha
Words are superfluous They roll off my tongue Like the sweat on a labourer’s back Toiling in the midday sun. Over and over words failed me When I first held you on my breast Unimagined pain, unbridled joy As you wailed your first little breath. Words were never adequate Watching you evolve From tiny steps…
Sole-fully.
I saw an ad for a shoe ‘One sole several straps’ One can change colours, One of life’s many hacks. I paused, amused by the line Your face shimmered before me Un-synchronized in time and space A glint, a smile only I could see. I reached out, “I am ready,” I said Take me away…
ipsita banerjee 