September

September, I kept waiting for
the cuckoo to sing. It happened
but in the sharpest turn of my
cerebral cortex. The gooseberries
still in elongations of their forever 
cool shadows. In the middle of
cooler dusks. A fortune I believe 
stands as aid, in inventing the
most obsessive way to look at the 
moon. Then a star arranging the 
light for the brightest bloom of 
it to caress the tangent of the 
lantern’s spectrum unfolding 
from the hut window, faces up.
Before I could make notes on how 
silent can beauty be, a toad croaked. 
The wind reads the light-less streets 
not knowing where to draft down the 
chronicles jotted over it. I believe they
have mine too: not anything precious 
but the dreamy possibility of you being 
here. I could keep looking into your 
eyes like the closing of an ache. Hitherto   
clinging like the idea of war, ramifying 
to a poem. From which falls a September 
tagging me along.


Performance

That day see you on the stage. Perform
a cento and my brain burst into emotions. 
You said you’ve done it many times, but 
it was the maiden for me. What I yearned 
to discover here, I knew I am to get here, 
like nostalgia in bones. Awash in spotlight 
glow, your hands moved and made me think 
of how a field gets reaped. Your body a valiant
 valley that comes out of the dark. Every step,
measured. Every word, revised until there
standpoints become that sky arranging refuges
for minds desiring a slice of eternity. I listen to
you, watch you to understand what you awaken 
in the reflections, I surrendered that music of me, 
only you’d known its notes. Why and where they 
collapsed. I imagine you, happy in the rehearsals. 
Regardless of the fine culmination, and my dense
clappings I can never explain what I kept searching 
in the act, where you used words like a rudder. What 
I want to say, my conscience kept wandering to and fro,
to get a life beyond my body. You, holding the torch.

About the Author:

Purbasha Roy is a writer from Jharkhand India. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Logic(s), Romance Writers of America, The Archipelago, Mascara Literary Review, Channel, SUSPECT, Space and Time magazine, Strange Horizons, Acta Victoriana, Pulp Literary Review and elsewhere. She attained second position in 8th Singapore Poetry Contest. She is a Best of the Net nominee.

*Feature image by prottoy hasan on Unsplash