No Country, No Names
The
young girl in a sari was
Off
to the library, her hands
Clasping
books, she didn’t see
The
truck crawl up behind her
Stuffed
with soldiers wearing
Leafy
helmets, false implants in
The
heart of that shell-shocked
Macadamized
Bengal town
Her
face a sorry storybook
Quite
a few pages torn
When
they found her by
A
garbage dump, stared at
By
the ancient panhandler
The
poor bastard refused arrest
Shouted
abuses, got suitably
Thrashed
by the police
A
young man had whispered
The
night before: show your palm
The
red henna peacock from
The
evening’s merry festivities
And
she read him a poem
About
crocodiles in snare
Until
they fell asleep in
Each
other’s arms, dreaming
There
was a river, grass and
Flowers
shrouding its banks
Its
depth unknown, but easy
For
the rebels who could swim
The
same night Yahya Khan
Made
quick plans to strike
Universities
where students
Danced
to songs of Tagore
That
was a night when nervous
Sirens
screamed on and on, his
Would-be
bride was picked up
And
thrown. Folding up
Maps
that fooled, didn’t show
A
country of hearts, he left
A
peacock mourned for her
And
him. No country yet for them.
(Published in Into the Migrant City, Kolkata: Writers Workshop India, 2014)
Bio:
Nabina Das is a Hyderabad-based poet and writer who has authored four books. She is a Commonwealth Writers correspondent 2016, a Charles Wallace fellowship winner 2012 and a Sangam House fiction fellowship winner 2012.
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