You not knowing that the sun arose
I unaware that it set

Our feelings placed under paperweights
blown away when children carried them off to play

This wrapping up of love or whatever it was
that spread its greenness under us like grass

The pain of words ricocheting
across the carrom board of our hearts

A well-kept envelope of misgivings
full of admonitions received from strangers

Estranging myself from whoever
you might have known in me

Refusal to touch poems till I have learned
to peel you from their flesh

This combing straight of distances
so nothing remains entangled between us

This submission to life’s flow
This forgetting like sand under water

…

Basudhara Roy teaches English at Karim City College affiliated to Kolhan University, Chaibasa. Drawn to themes of gender and ecology, her four published books include a monograph and three poetry collections, the latest being Inhabiting. She loves, rebels, writes and reviews from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand.