Sex & Violence
  Vol II : issue 1

  Amrita Pritam
  Mrinal Pande
  Evelyne Accad
  Gagan Gill
  Selina Hossain
  Only in Print

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I Won’t Come And Tell You In This Place


that these days I’m a star
lonely as stars

I won’t come and tell you

that these days
there is broken glass
in my breath

that gods pass
one by one
inside me
to revive an ancient ache

that these days
my soul is sitting hidden
inside the flesh
like a dislocated bone

that the sparrows
that used to fly
within me
have begun to tire

that there was nothing there
for them to sit on
no tree, no cage, no rooftop

that the nail
that used to poke through
has grown larger
than the heel

I won’t come and tell you

 


Painting by MIMI RADHAKRISHNAN


In this place
The waterfall bangs its head
on the rocks

In this place
memory takes out
its slice of pain

In this place
the river
swells to its fullest
just before drying up

Seeing the holy thread
on his body
she cries with one eye
laughs with the other
in this place

Quietly
she lodges in his body
her desired death

in this place

 

Translated from the Hindi by Arlene Zide and the poet

 
Gagan Gill, a former literary editor, is prominent among the younger generation of Hindi poets