My heart is closed to loving these days
I rummage within
Like I search for keys
In my big fat weekday purse
It’s too clustered
My search, too hurried
It flows today
Like the shallow pond
In my neighborhood
The butt of jokes
For those coming from area
Of unending stream
My heart doesn’t hold any miracle
An outsider roaming the streets
It isn’t the fabled village well
That migrant maids speak of
It doesn’t become my succor
In time of drought
A million caged birds
Entangled vocal chords
It can’t retrieve its voice
The hunt is on, nevertheless
In the darkness of late evening
In downtown bars
But recession hit those places hard
There are no happy hours left
Vandana Kumar
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Bio
Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet residing in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites, journals and anthologies of repute – ‘Outlook’, ‘Madras Courier’, ‘Grey Sparrow Journal’ to name only a very few. She has been a part of seminal feminist anthologies like the Indie Blue publication ‘The Kali Project’. Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-cinema’ and ‘The Daily Eye’. She was a jury member for the ‘All India Poetry Competition’ organized by ‘Cocoa-Butter’ and also co-edited their debut print anthology that resulted from this competition. Her recent collection of poems ‘Mannequin Of Our Times’ (February 2023) – has been awarded the ‘The Panorama International Book Award 2023’ and the ‘Mighty Pens Awards’ in the poetry category.
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