In the town where we lived,
the inhabitants believed in speaking
in rhyme: the reason would follow
automatically. They argued. They talked
slantwise. By that token,
power-failure became load-shedding.
Failures, whether of power or otherwise,
are caused by the shedding of loads that can't
be carried. They knew from experience.
No sun to strike me into productivity
in the absence of electricity, I spent
nights punching holes
into lessons just memorized.
That was, indeed, when I began to learn
to speak in riddles, just like my townsmen.
And I deciphered how
darkness can spell deliverance―
my mother without her needles or rolling pins.
My father leaving behind his calculations and quills:
all three of us on the terrace,
me trying to find a corner just for myself.
And usually failing
My mother remembers those nights
my father's finger touching the sky, spelling out the stars.
I remember those very nights
when my father's voice pointed
out non-existence:
The constellations do not blink.
No one lives up there in the sky.Just as there aren't ghosts anywhere.
He was a man of science.
I learnt well.
I know there was no father's
finger touching the sky. Just me wishing
the moon would show the etymology of respite:
the pathway out of this moss-filled well.
Instead, all it could do was to ghostwrite toward
alabaster archways, spit and venom,
skeletons of theaters long gone
out of business.
Learning to talk slantwise didn't always help:
darkness , after all, is not always deliverance.
Unlike my mother, I am not in the habit
of covering the past in whitest, let alone purest
of sheets.
Nandini Dhar's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muse India, Kritya, Mascara Literary Review, Off the Coast, Pratilipi, tinfoildresses, First Literary Review, Hawaii Review, and Asia Writes. A Pushcart nominee, Nandini grew up in Kolkata, India, and received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University - Calcutta, and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin.
