On Our Anniversary, 29th by Kushal Poddar

 

Photo by Ylanite Koppens

On Our Anniversary, 29th

to us and Claire and Nick

I glow, summer heat on your cheek,

and you do the same, vice versa,

and when the town photographer 

who survives on taking pics

of the tourists travel there to see

the carnival of lost kisses reuniting 

produces our snaps we have no

other options but to buy the frame where

we look twins, porcelain, dolls and fragile,

look as if we are the foreground for a bearded man

Wwgo smiled after a long month. Hey,

let's laugh like that. Let's hold our hats

as if the evening wind will make those fly.

Remember the night in November we witnessed 

a white owl near the greying ocean? Even weighed 

with our years in our lungs we breathed fast,

glowed as the fireflies arranged the bushes,

for lives from another era observed the carnival.

Kushal Poddar has authored ten books, the latest being A White Can For The Blind Lane, and his works have been translated into twelve languages. He is a co-editor for Outlook Magazine and the editor of Words Surfacing. He does illustrations and sketches for various magazines.