The winter of an autumn evening
And at the green light,
the man in his tattered
overcoat and I are stayed
by years of belief and dread
while a mangy gin cat,
cursed evening on its tail,
crosses the street.
Autumn rain bends and
slants the minutes, unleashing
tiny thunderstorms in my
cup of take away coffee.
We are not different,
the man and I. Drawn
quietly into ourselves,
we breathe out curls of
air that hang in ribbons,
lifeless, in front of our faces.
but dead things talk.
Like the sickly sweet smell
of decaying jasmine that
fill us both till we are uneasy
and shift on our feet.
Could I but say to him—
winter is just about here;
waiting just as we are,
it would relieve us both of
this moment. But he bares
unholy teeth and hisses
at the cat, and all is lost.
Autumn leaves curl around
the slipping day in a bid to
stay and lap at the moon
in the palm of my hand.
Half way across the street,
the cat pauses to fix glassy
eyes on us—as if to say we’re
damned even without its help—
and with a quick leap it
tightens the clammy noose
of winter around us both.
the ordinariness of being
and how can I begin to tell you,
while waiting for something as ordinary as lunch,
and with just these mere days lining my jacket, how the city lit up
one evening under the behemoth Russian skies that
burn Baudelaire, the gospels I had been reading,
to turn the grey in your beard silver? suddenly make no sense at all.
and what if we missed the sunset,
a silhouette of the sun creeping across the sky, sold gabardines,
dismissed the constellations, pillaged graveyard towns,
hung from precipices, taking life-like pictures of a fall,
hundred feet of surging wind. will you now say to me —
this is ordinary, that this can grow anywhere?
TRISHA BORA is an editor and writer who has been away from her hometown – Assam – for many years now and currently lives in Delhi. Her works have been published at Asia Writes, Nether Magazine, Ultra Violet, Out of Print, Pyrta, Nth Position, Kavikala, Green Light Dhaba among others.
And at the green light,
the man in his tattered
overcoat and I are stayed
by years of belief and dread
while a mangy gin cat,
cursed evening on its tail,
crosses the street.
Autumn rain bends and
slants the minutes, unleashing
tiny thunderstorms in my
cup of take away coffee.
We are not different,
the man and I. Drawn
quietly into ourselves,
we breathe out curls of
air that hang in ribbons,
lifeless, in front of our faces.
but dead things talk.
Like the sickly sweet smell
of decaying jasmine that
fill us both till we are uneasy
and shift on our feet.
Could I but say to him—
winter is just about here;
waiting just as we are,
it would relieve us both of
this moment. But he bares
unholy teeth and hisses
at the cat, and all is lost.
Autumn leaves curl around
the slipping day in a bid to
stay and lap at the moon
in the palm of my hand.
Half way across the street,
the cat pauses to fix glassy
eyes on us—as if to say we’re
damned even without its help—
and with a quick leap it
tightens the clammy noose
of winter around us both.
the ordinariness of being
and how can I begin to tell you,
while waiting for something as ordinary as lunch,
and with just these mere days lining my jacket, how the city lit up
one evening under the behemoth Russian skies that
burn Baudelaire, the gospels I had been reading,
to turn the grey in your beard silver? suddenly make no sense at all.
and what if we missed the sunset,
a silhouette of the sun creeping across the sky, sold gabardines,
dismissed the constellations, pillaged graveyard towns,
hung from precipices, taking life-like pictures of a fall,
hundred feet of surging wind. will you now say to me —
this is ordinary, that this can grow anywhere?
TRISHA BORA is an editor and writer who has been away from her hometown – Assam – for many years now and currently lives in Delhi. Her works have been published at Asia Writes, Nether Magazine, Ultra Violet, Out of Print, Pyrta, Nth Position, Kavikala, Green Light Dhaba among others.
