Delta
Between me and my poem,
lines we wanted to tell each other, but never did.
Lines we never wanted to utter, but always did.
People we dreamt together, yet search on the streets.
Places we saw, still couldn’t reach.
A story that isn’t quite a story.
A love unconfessed, more riddle than love.
A grief, silent yet virile as a breath in a storm.
We are a frog perched on the water lily
and the leap that it yearns for.
A developing nation and the ghost of its looming debt.
A small car that sees a truck in the mirror.
A photograph on the table and the camera it liberated itself from.
Light that we pour between the table lamp and the sun.
Between me and my poem,
the difficult love between a murderer and his shadow.
Fleeting warmth and alienation of the lovelorn.
A travelogue in the handwriting of knives on wounds.
About the Author
Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet, flash fiction author and translator. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Poetica Review, Columba, Periwinkle Literary Magazine, Reality Break Press, Brasilia Review and many others. Books: After Seeing (2006), Party Poopers (2014), and XXL (Dhauli Books, 2018). He lives in Bangalore, India.
