He Called Her Midnight

By Bhaswati Khasnabis


She was my midnight girl
Spinning fragments in wee hours.
Wished she knew a couple of fairy tales
Reserved safely for my toddler.
Her hairs overflowed
Like flooded deltaic Sunderbans.
It was home to butterflies and fauna,
She paused at those huge bajras;
Her lips smelling of salted pepper.
Her hands moved stealthily,
Brushes reigning freely on the canvas.
Shapes gaining forms, as it perspired
A rainbow of colors and emotions.
She sang- a buxom sparrow
Taking short breaths,lapping it up.
An elixir for my shrieking child.
She spoke,as words vanished
Sounds were suppressed,
The earth motioned doggedly.

But he saw my face
My elder son in the cracked mirror.
Shouting, suffocating,rousing
‘You are beautiful’.
I lacked limbs, the thinking mammal
An eccentric artist on the roll.
My son fighting with naked hands
A battle meant for necromancers.
Shrinking,crying,vacillating,trembling
As if one life was not enough.


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