The Need to Travel
I cannot rhyme the green bird by my window
with the fan whirling, and my thoughts going backwards
in cycles homewards again. The few rooms that have been mine
I know by heart down to the turtle-shaped smudge on the mirror,
inspiration gathers like dust under the bed
saturated I wait for the night to fall. A screech of an owl
might tear it open, but the moon within the branches
is trapped in clichés. I confess my mind is a boomerang that’s fixed
to a vocabulary of the familiar. Pinned to my wall is the poetry
of departures. I should pack my bags now.
Sohini Basak is a student of literature at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. In October 2011, she won the first prize for poetry in the Unisun-Realiance TimeOut Writing Competition.
*This poem previously appeared in the chapbook the cats will know