Artwork by: Johan Christian
i.
If today,
your finches be too close
to my vineyards
that are animalistic
to the things
we were ashamed of,
I would let
my absent-minded fingers
sift
through lace curtains
that flourish without
windows,
as if
we were homeless, young love,
to curb apples
and a weed garden,
but did we ever
deserve those
wildflowers.
ii.
I should have smiled
for church bells
made out of dandelion seeds
that travel
where you become
fingers
of a twelve o'clock prayer,
but I am not sure
if we were ever made used to
the mourning of poppies,
(those red ones
shifting from one of your
homely curves
to another)
like some misheard lyrics
of a canticle,
'and the stage rolls merrily by
without no strings,
nor needlework.'
iii.
On a radio,
there is a nightingale
narrating a gentle
murder
prowling on the streets
and grieving
with mouthfuls
of bullets,
in an unperturbed
sing-song monotonia,
so I try to keep
a sagacious elegy
prepared
for an uncommitted
homicide,
that is too calm
for bedtime stories,
but I am too tired
(to become an afterglow
of a seldom love),
to cough enough
tulips
in a single breath
for your ebbing gaze,
still, hands cling
to bricks and marble
clouds
as if
we will build a house there
that has your name,
build another
and call it Jerusalem.
Esha Yadav
BA English Hons.
2nd Year
[Edited by Nilabja Das and Mehak Aggarwal
Art Curated by Basundhara Jana
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