A petulant star has forsworn the end of our beginning. 
It is time to undeceive this pretend of our beginning.
 
Either the heart’s lock or its keys must be now lost to life.
And the escalier unstaired of the descend of our beginning.
 
Night’s pain corrodes what defiant faith builds by day.
Love’s arithmetic unmoors in the expend of our beginning.
 
By the hour you arrived, I had lost all there was to lose.
My bankruptcy unsigned the recommend of our beginning.
 
Naive about the future, we spent what words we had.
Artless silence unhems the apprehend of our beginning.
 
The horizon’s aperture shrinks with every saint that falls.
Between each of our untruths, a condescend of our beginning.
 
I fantasize gaudy galaxies in your one mouthful of clay.
You unreveal all veils in the portend of our beginning.
 
If not more, this memory shall perfume my chest of loss.
Look, this ghazal unlimbs in the godsend of our beginning. 

…

Basudhara Roy teaches English at Karim City College affiliated to Kolhan University,
Chaibasa. She is the author of three collections of poems, her latest work being featured
in Outlook, The Dhaka Tribune, EPW, Pine Cone Review, EKL Review, Live Wire, Madras
Courier, and Berfrois among others. Shortlisted for the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize
2022, Basudhara loves, rebels, writes and reviews from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.