2023 Poetry — Malashree Suvedi

assured

The light is still on,

bright, as the evening sets— -on an on,

the day keeps going, like salmon that swim upstream,

I wanna go down into the shores of labour and solitude—

rise like steam or arms in need of movement, I find it all benign.

I come out as if a specimen from a beaker—

absolutely futile directions, fatalistic and all languid

like crows floating on to you—flying and fading

I become a lender on a bus wondering through the city like a

pelican gauging the temperature of water—

the hummingbird

doesn’t wait for the buzz—

the skies are blue just because—and all logic aside,

I know I’m going to have fun:

on these hills, through these streets, also those narrow windmills,

it’s so sweet & I/I/I

manage to feel it all.