It began like this:
Holding my hand across a wooden table,
studying the lines with your eyebrows knit,
you were charting a course
we knew would lead nowhere;
I saw the Brahmaputra in your eyes,
and dipped my small canoe.
Years passed, silent and still upon the river banks.
The seas grew into the distance and the small stream
that was the source dried upon my eyelash.
Nothing was said and the canoe
turned upside down and back again.
The oar became a friend,
but took its time,
digging into my flesh and tearing skin.
The tributary in my cornea
turned to glass;
I felt it crack, draw the tornado in.
Now, as the waters turn calm,
I pull the canoe through,
feel the Brahmaputra in my eyes.
Menka Shivdasani's first book of poems, Nirvana at Ten Rupees, was published by Adil Jussawalla under the Praxis imprint in 1990. Her second collection, Stet, first appeared in 2001, and her third collection, Safe House, was published recently by Paperwall. Menka is the co-translator of Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry, published by Sahitya Akademi in 1998, and editor of If the Roof Leaks, Let it Leak, an anthology of women's writing. She has edited two online anthologies of contemporary Indian poetry. Menka's poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies worldwide, and she is a founder member of the Mumbai Poetry Circle.
Browse more poems
Emerging Poets Prize
Featured Poem 
Resources 
