Poetry

By

Purabi Bhattacharya

On your footstep

Time ticking walk, into the horizon not yet nibbled

petite but uncompliant tread into the wild, with chaotic crowded thought

I look for you, with my feeler turning left and right, left and right

sniffing analgesic hope you left behind.

Tomorrow with the matutinal wake

I shall leave behind huge quantity of dreams at your doorstep.

Hours before you greet the world

biometric integrated, my world shall bow down

and a fresh aromatic day will let you

bypass the frame of a dream, solitary.

On your footstep

I shall in my stilettos toddle free, hairs unpinned, eyelids barren

bosom unbuttoned, nails

polished again.

Stay awake

Nights are getting decrepit and dreadfully fretful

the owls too hoot no more

stingy stalking winds, as it brushes against you and me

bring along the odor of the terpenes, from far north-east

whistles a spellcasters’ song.

Somewhere in some volatile valley,

in an earthen pot: boils, bubbles

the undoing of the unlikes.

Here, we lay, past 2 o’clock post midnight with two bodies

side by side, stilled;

whimpering at the news of a fall,

unknown

but numbered.

And then as loud as he can be, the watchman in his regular tone

fills in: “stay awake, stay awake, stay awake”!

Purabi Bhattacharya

Purabi D Bhattacharya is a writer from Shillong, India. Currently based in Gujarat, she teaches English literature. Her poems have appeared mostly in print journals, anthologies including Quest (Writers’ Forum, Ranchi, India), Bridge-in-making (Kolkata, India), p4poetry Anthology, Scaling Heights(Authorspress), apart from contributing to some internet poetry portals. She has also a collection of poems Call me published by Writers Workshop, India. Currently she is on the panel of book reviewers of Muse India.