Three Poems

Sway

There’s someone’s old attic

Stashed away

At the top of the house,

A little crooked memory

Precariously perched

On somebody else’s daily swept

Freshly aired life

Of unpacking boxes,

Arranging shelves,

Playing records

That they’ve missed

By a decade or few.

But when the windows are opened in the evening,

The ghosts seem to be humming,

Swaying and twisting

In somebody’s arms from long ago.

-Urvashi Bahuguna

Room

she painted herself a room

and walked into it

just like that

and lay down on the rich blue bedspread

and watched the world pass her by.

she

saw as they

lifted her world

into

another.

a room

a room full of rooms

other people’s rooms

with other lonely hearts

dozing on leather couches

staring at bowls of sunflowers

looking out of rainy windows

and watching the watchers go by

she watched

as the dissected rooms

parts of them hidden

to all but those who painted them

were looked at

talked about

pondered upon

she waited

as someone walked up to her room

and stared at her across a red velvet cordon.

and she stared back

until he gave up

and wandered away.

-Radhika Chakraborty

Attic

A shaft of afternoon sun,

A slice of moonlight,

And a lot of dust confetti:

That’s where your childhood is

packed away. In trunks. In boxes

full of tiny dresses. In dolls

with cobwebs in their eyes.

It was a perfect spot, a fairy place

on rainy days:

                “And after I rescued their prince,

                The Queen granted me my wish!”

That’s why you were a fairy for a day,

when you flew to school in purple wings

And a name that rolls like marbles on a wooden floor

Like Lylornia, or Seraphynia.

And on bitter-tasting salty days,

when you didn’t understand why

the whole world had stopped loving you,

no one would find you there, hidden

 behind that musty forlorn smell,

behind grandma’s old parrot cage.

So you never found out what

That trunk contained, the one that sat

in the corner dreaming of old days, the one

that used to be at the bottom of a dark-green sea,

until your brother slew the sea-dragon that hoarded it

and brought it to you. But he never told you.

It contained letters that your dad wrote

To mum when they were young. Pshaw!

                “It contains treasure! Pearls and diamonds

                And scepters with crystal orbs! But there is

 no way of finding out.”

Because a ghoul sits on top of it, rattling its lock,

And he sings of longing on stormy days.

I think you can still hear him,

If you listen.

And if you once again climb the stairs that lead

To that old place, I’m sure he’ll tell that it was you

That he was waiting for, and lead you to the fairies.

                                                                                                                                                                               

-Sohini Basak