Recovery takes Forever & all that the world does not deserve to see
Recovery takes Forever
First there was a trail of light.
Pine forest canopies. Razor leaves splicing
sunrays like glass and neurons. Filtered gold held in pine
cones. Scratches over coarse bark. The last of the Sun the
timber tastes before its felling.
Then there was a trick of light.
Meagre fraction of the sun reaching the
freshwater brook, golden fractals make it look
shallow where a hundred sets of bones form its bed.
Glitter of fish under the sheet. The last of the Sun the
man tastes before water and pebbles in his lungs.
And last, there was a transfer of light.
To the cottage, ripe peaches and barley. Calloused
hands that fashioned civilization from brick and mortar.
The light lingers over a patch of dirt at whose feet a slab
of stone denudates over a hundred solar revolutions.
There rest the hands that held the light.
There rests the light.
all that the world does not deserve to see
On folding the tenderest issues
of the dinner table, the raw peaches
rotting in a waste-bin now replaced
for canned ones, on caging hands
that reflect and refract blue at their
axes, I shove my jaan underneath
the oak desks immune to garage sales.
Hide what is sacred—my ancestors
spoke. I think I was sacred to someone.
I think you are sacred to me now. Near
criminal to sweep relics under the rug,
the dust motes mushroom in the air: You,
like a cataclysm to a mundane dawn. You,
the sacred heirloom I dismantle, compress,
fold to stash away in the chestnut drawer
of smoked cigarette stubs that once blazed
my grandfather’s lips to lungs to pyre.
Anoushka Chauhan (she/her) is an Indian law student who sometimes writes poetry inspired by love, loss and personal experiences.