Near The Embassy of The Songbirds

Near the embassy of the oscines
a cellist keeps his hat flipped on the street,
and his ears open for the music.
From the attic of the edifice a voice casts
a red handkerchief. In the air it is Sunray;
in the yard it becomes a rose, the one
drunken on the nightingale’s blood.
Late for my appointment with a feather
I run past the cellist, drop a lover’s coin
in his hat for goodluck.

Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor