Mother

By Shambhobi Ghosh 

 

A teardrop chain
grows inside her
dark fortress—
eight sentient limbs
weave a milky bloom
on the wall, shielding
her last miracle
from a looming grief.

Chromatophores
falter like broken fuse.
Her psychedelic skin
is now curdled milk.
Her eyes, ink-strokes
on a withering page;
three hearts beat
in steady decline.

Only her copper-laced
blood throbs
inside her veins,
still whispering
like her gentle Mother
Ocean, of memories
when cephalopods
ruled the earth.

In a dream, she unfurled,
gleaming in the rainbow
reef, zipped between swords
of hammerhead teeth,
inked the waters midnight
blue, and waltzed
with kelp ribbons
in the shimmer.

Now she exhales
her depleting
reserves, arms
sore with oil
and chemical brine,
resigned to polythene
traps that no Houdini
could evade.

Acid water stings
her mouth. Her eyes
gasp for oxygen—
even as her ancestors
sing to bring forth
another Yuganta,
wash away the festering
corpse of Holocene.


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