(Not a) Love Poem
by Satya Dash
Folder upon nested folder
in the Documents directory of my laptop,
housing images from a time when the pen-
drive was a revelation, each conceived from a promise
of joy to curate highlights from a distinctly young phase
in life, carefully categorized by months, years, moods
and places. What’s the use of time spent so vigorously
cataloguing youth if now I can't find a picture
of us at the beach, in the middle of a group, our waists
touching and pinkies entwined in the bliss of not knowing
this would be the last day we saw each other?
Look, this is not a poem about lost love or love lost,
this has more to do with sensations. I just didn’t have a choice
when you appeared in my afternoon dream
and inside it, my flabbergasted face to see your face
hadn’t changed at all. I mean, really, what were you doing here?!
And so for tea today, I grind ginger hard in the mortar
for the ache in my throat is of the irksome kind. The TV
doesn’t help, breaking the world’s disdain on my eyes
and ears— murders and plunders, cold
negotiations and dronesome ramifications, countries
of shivering bone in the grips of lust, normalized
by trumpets of broadcasting, the harrowing and numbing
squelched into daily doses of fodder, injected drip
by commercial drip into oblong lobes
of what will soon fog into the meninges
of memory. My tendons twitch,
one shudder to another. In response, I pretend
to be a sum. A sum different than my body parts
might suggest. On hearing voices outside, I join
the kids playing cricket in the courtyard. My mind scours
the patch of ponderous sky over the mist
ridden lake in the backdrop for movement— twin streaks
left by flamboyant airplanes or the flight
of tireless wings stretching the canvas. Listen, I need
to get to the bottom of this— tell me, which rung
of romance, what level of decency
eludes the rust of mediocrity
when reflected upon in few years’ time?
Satya Dash's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Waxwing, Wildness, Redivider, Passages North, The Journal, The Florida Review, Hobart, The Cortland Review and Poetry@Sangam among others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator too. He is a two-time Orison Anthology, Best of the Net and Best New Poets nominee. He grew up in Cuttack and now lives in Bangalore. He tweets at: @satya043
