Cold Fights A Battle Within

Cold sports a smoke dragon look.
The women and children of the war
breathe as one. Cold nails a memory
of the nil noise and blue pins pressed against
one’s eardrums after a blast. Cold hurts
because it fears the night, sky interrupted by the flashes,
coughing captives and the earth that flows
red and smells metallic. Each noise births
a dot in the liquid, and by the ripples it grows,
matures, and the moment the circle thinks
it knows the fullness it fizzes out, and cold
stays with the group bent and convulsing
in the winter’s throes. The winter never goes
anywhere leaving this camp.
“All because of owning a narrative.”
One whispers. “I cannot act. I’ll look bad
in the role of the dead” The other says. No one laughs.

Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor