Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Whiplash

             a sunset hooping through the sky’s hole
             reflected clear in the lacquer of my mother’s tears
             the drowning clang of railway metal

to set forth a journey
unspooling fear and anticipation
I was eighteen and leaving for university

             isolation clawing on my forehead
             about to forget how to love a home
             not knowing years later I’d pine

for an absence of light
not knowing how having an inverter would deny me
for years the spectacle of darkness,

             an overturned lantern, the hiss of a night breeze,
             the stink of comforting kerosene and in the flame’s blue,
             middle class fears turning sooty and grime

years chip away like
flecks on my mother’s chin
my father turns seventy five this week

             I’m still searching for the baritone to wish him in
             I’ve been away for so long, now at the mention of family
             my mouth gapes, my stomach drops

I grope for the string that connects them both
my hands only find an irregularity in pulse
behind my riverless palm a nail screws harder than before

 
 
 
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