I create my own space in this hospital cabin,
a flaming fire is upward leaping in a distant bush.
I multiply everyday image and store inside,
the scars are numberless and invisible,
seeming to ignore the pain of isolation.
I know the memory is a ship leaving port now.
In the next bed someone listens to the wind,
amidst the soiled sheets, crushed packets and bandages.
I look at the window for hours.
never know how time passes, how memory holds,
If only I can piece together the light beams,
eyes don’t count the scar and wounds anymore,
dark birds fly over the electric posts outside.
When can I be released and walk out?
Days are sifting through the narrow lanes,
all my fingers still lie on the pulse of the days,
searching the roots in silence and the
days grow darker in a mad kind of collage.
We all will be leaving, only a matter of time.
Someone shouts but my name barely sounds.
Gopal Lahiri
Picture Nick Victor
@gopallahiri
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Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 32 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred journals and anthologies globally His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 19 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021and Best of the Net in 2025. His ‘Selected Poems’ was published recently.
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