Response Poem 4 : Pallavi Verma
A rehearsal of Loss
I fit in your old clothes
Somedays they look new on me
Other days, I can breathe
the smell of your being in them
Mother and I, pack for you
silver jhumki’s with a
handwoven Kantha embroidery kurta
A distant relative flying to Chicago
will deliver it to you
Wear them
till you lose interest in them
And the next time, when you meet
bring that kurta to leave it with me
I will fit in it
only to breathe the smell of your being
after you have departed
You won’t return back ever
to this homeland
We knew the night we saw you off.
You drove away from our door. And the night,
It left the earth the way a broken man,
his lover’s door closing behind him, leaves
the street in silence for the rest of his life. Note: In response to "The Rehearsal of Loss"
I fit in your old clothes
Somedays they look new on me
Other days, I can breathe
the smell of your being in them
Mother and I, pack for you
silver jhumki’s with a
handwoven Kantha embroidery kurta
A distant relative flying to Chicago
will deliver it to you
Wear them
till you lose interest in them
And the next time, when you meet
bring that kurta to leave it with me
I will fit in it
only to breathe the smell of your being
after you have departed
You won’t return back ever
to this homeland
We knew the night we saw you off.
You drove away from our door. And the night,
It left the earth the way a broken man,
his lover’s door closing behind him, leaves
the street in silence for the rest of his life. Note: In response to "The Rehearsal of Loss"
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