The Orchard
The orchid appearsat the same spot
it died this summer,
the South face of our North wall.
Falling in love with one
who returns from death
stings for a brief stint.
This afternoon it wears its
best translucent green.
Rain digs out the devil in the dirt.
I sit on one palm of the stairs,
ask the devil if this time rain
will stay until the plant
blooms for once before its passing.
Ichor
The sigh of the windsends the browned leaves
to fence a circle.
Inside,
its curated nothingness
blooms the blood of sun.
The drunkard will fall here,
roll in ichor, sleep until
it is the time of the taverns.
In Dark Gold
In the morning’s dark gold,three starlings on hold
at the bridge’s mast
I seek life’s bold strokes.
Water, far below, slow, sidles.
Cold rides on its ripples.
The metalwork wires the mettle
of the birds’ quarrel.
Everything else, even the woman,
a florist, with her yellow and
orange marigolds desire to be
what it is not by birth.
Loose leaves turn sepia,
tropicalised black or time’s
worn-out nights, and I weigh
the difficulty level of daring
the railing one leg at a time
and embrace the water.
The birds will save another day.
Ask The Spirit If You Are Real
The seance woman moves her neck.It looks paler than her face.
Ask her something specific;
ask her about the voices of some
summer evening when you were six;
the dead may not remember.
He used to sit before
a photo of his house and see
an empty plot.
The medium breathes, watches
the moonlight stream toward
a lower plain, bend of amaurosis.
Emergency Exits
Our fathers cannot explainwhy we should take our dogs
for a stroll, chop-chop, as if
we have spring within, and decoding
our fathers’ commands and acting
accordingly are our lives’ purpose.
Their face shows sticky anxiety.
Their voice conveys that we should leave.
I walk the dog through
the eucalyptus trees and deodars
to the rusty fence three men high
and then realize – my skin
bears the effect of rust for days
and we have no dog.
Thought Balloons
Anyone of us, the guardiansoutside the kindergarten
could have been the windblown
vendor of the bags of balloons,
candy floss, plastic windmills,
whistles and horns. We would be
wearing the faded jeans and Vichy check
come summer, rain or winter
until the fabric would free its threads.
He might have children going to some school,
not this, never this one. We stare hard, follow him
with our eyes. He might have a noir heart,
a cabin in a hard-boiled land.
We All Wait For Something That Doesn’t Happen
The man at the busstandlooks back thrice and more
startled by me although
I am a reflection, confusing,
in his rain-struck glasses,
and because I wait for my ride
behind his back I am a passing
memory, a false one, never been
in his past, at this moment.
What does he think? What does
that woman selling fruits? The dove
on the pavement? The driver asleep
and yet ready for the announcement?
An ant smuggles something invisible.
Autumn nears us inch by inch and yet
rain has been predicted. The man sniffs
as if I am his petrichor.
The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ Kushal Poddar has eight books to his credit including Postmarked: Quarantine from Ice Floe Press: https://icefloepress.net/postmarked-quarantine-a-book-of-poems-by-kushal-poddar/. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. Twitter: @kushalpoe.
Art Banner: Throwing Around the Anvil, a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter working from a photo by Kushal Poddar. Twitter: @frede_kenter, IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22.
IceFloe Press 