Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










HOIST THE LARGER GRIEF ALONG by Aditi Nagrath

dark pith of my own self to whom
I write & pry : immortal / an after-light
soft as a kiss on the neck in the cold
tilting down to meet my mouth

*

what loss I am constructed of is knives
that pivot on their hells

*

but I still have the song
of my mother , glimpse of sleep inspired
into the heart (she repeats my child-
hood into two notes held shakily up)

*

I can only say what I know till now
but that is insubstantial – wanting
flesh and blood to feed my thought
when I have scarce / the wound

which closes and opens
like the years I lived in once

*

it would or could be better
if I learnt not to break my shadow
into crumbs and if you were
here even rarely my love

to impel the oar a feather more
afloat

 

ADITI NAGRATH