Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
It took long hours to fashion a set of wings
out of cardboard and silver foil, to pour glue
out of a blue bottle, paint with a flat brush
to the very edge. My mother punched holes,
slipped drawstrings borrowed from petticoats
and tied them on my back. As these stories go,
at the close of the school day, I returned
one-winged. My mother was inconsolable.
Once, overcome with the wrong sort of love,
I slipped a silver ring studded with moon off
my finger and handed it to a boy. What a gesture.
When he broke the delicate metal, I wanted
only the ring. The boy could stay where he was.
But each time I asked for the pieces to repair,
he refused. Promises that he would fix it himself
were followed by anger. What did one ring matter?
I reached for reasons – a gift from an aunt when
I first left home, my favourite stone. But why
should I explain why I love a thing? I wept
at the loss – more proof I was shallow,
not as pure in my love as I claimed. It took me
twenty years to remember my mother bending
her weight into the scissors to carve wings from
a thick board, to recall how I have no memory
of when the string loosened, when the silver trailed
into the crowd, how I was maddened by her grief.
Now I reach for the phone to tell her I never got
the ring back, to apologise that I misplaced the love
pulled from her like water from a stone.
Urvashi Bahuguna’s debut poetry collection was selected for the 2017 Emerging Poet’s Prize by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and will be published late 2018 by The Great Indian Poetry Collective. Her book of essays on mental health is forthcoming in 2019 from Penguin India. Her work has been recognized by a Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship, a Sangam House fellowship, an Eclectica Spotlight Author Prize, and a TOTO Award for Creative Writing.
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