By Shambhavi Misra
I have a memory of you
Which I find folded on the turn
On the days I go by your street.
I have a memory of you
Which I want to preserve
Like Cinderella's glass slipper saved by Charming,
Like sunbeams captured in a school photograph,
Like grandma's love wrapped in a braid,
Like a god enshrined in a random alley.
I have a memory of you
Which I want to let go off
Like a feather thrown from up above the hills,
Like night jasmines blown away in rain,
Like one of Cupid's many missing arrows,
Like a mythological river that we can see
Only in satellite images.
I have a memory of you.
I'll suspend it before birds of prey,
Torture it with rack and screw,
File it in between lost electricity bills,
Whisper it in the clinking of wind bells.
Roar I must at time,
For I have memories of you,
Embedded in seconds, minutes and days.