The North Of The City /Let’s Go/The Sapling

The North Of The City 

‘Oxygen available. Call this number.’
The posters plague the posts and walls
of the old part of the city, but it may
not be enough. It has expired the lease of life.

It waits for me, its son, the first time drunk
everytime, with a long walking stick
to chase away the strays and pariahs.
It waits. It waits. This time not me, a shadow returns.

Let’s Go 

From the periphery of my sight 
a morning kingfisher flies in; 
in this landlocked life it seeks 
for the soft and slithery pink.

Will the world look any different 
from its beaks before the darkest black
covers my writhing esse?

One leaf floats and fall in the other
corner of my vission. The road is light.
The road tessellates the water particles.

The Sapling

The sapling I chose for my daughter’s 
school project thrives 
through their primary years,
and sometimes her teacher,
called eccentric behind her back,
will ask me, “Do you remember 
to visit that dwarf fig you brought 
here?” I always mumble
my guilt as if the plant is 
my mother, and the window 
of her old folks’ home pines
to see my shadow entering 
through the main gate so that
it can alert mother, and she can
sprawl a little more, look
a shade greener.

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Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor.

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