Suchi
Govindarajan

Emily, I would’ve liked my hope to have feathers:

a bulbul that cocks its head to sing to the sky,

a hoopoe with flared crest that ploughs the soil

But, Emily, it’s 2023 and nothing nests any more

within me or even finds a wordless tune

My soul is sworn to silence, my heartbeat

has worn away the drum in the centre

My time here feels tight, feels loose

like something I could sleep away or stay up for

Each day is like a wiper sweeping tears

Beyond its arc, where things stay untouched

is who I used to be, and maybe I used to be

a person who loved your poem.

Instead, my hope is a pill, punched into silver foil

and how it travels through my pipes of blood

is not poetic to anyone but me, Emily

Quiet traveller, it hitches a ride to my mind

until every sunrise brings a memory of lightness,

until the dark is a velvet canopy and I begin again

Again I begin

to open my eyes, keep them dry enough

to look to next week, next year, the next bird

that will stop at my window, and, in its puffed-up calls,

maybe I will hear something I remember

as music.