Monsoon

by Sutapa Chaudhuri (September 2015)

Obliterate all paths across the scorpion trail—

the venom deadly, fill up, overflowing,

the empty fate lines imprinted on my palm.

Take away the pain that sears a dead weight

athwart my chest, the spread of numbness,

slow and stealthy, crisscrossed over a wild,

palpitating heart. Wash out the tales

of falsehood and betrayal; of deadly lies

spoken in jest or casual encounters

of intimacy etched deep and fathomless

in unpurgeable residues. Let your mudslides

annihilate civilizations, the wistful nightmares

of trysts and togetherness. Let flash-floods

in sudden waves wreck fake lives and fruitless

dreams; let a cloud-burst drown, in a deadly

downpour, false lost loves or indelible,

truant memories. Let life die and then,

if you can, touch my heart with love.
 

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Sutapa Chaudhuri has two poetry collections — Broken Rhapsodies and Touching Nadir. My Lord, My Well-Beloved is a collection of her translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs.

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