4/29/13

When You Come Home
By Adreyo Sen


I like it when you return.
I open the door and there’s this faraway look
in your face. The slight, sweet sadness
you conceal so well.
Absentminded when not by our side, you
are looking away, your defenceless eyes
searching somewhere far beyond the leaving taxi
and the people momentarily arrested by the
unbelievable unknowing of your beauty.
I can look at you the way a child
looks at her favourite doll, examine the
neat simplicity of your dress, the serene
dance of its georgette against your tired body,
the peace returning to your nervous hands
as you realise you’re home now, with me,
your owner, empress of your
too intensely hammering heart.
Of course, my favourite part is when you finally see me.
Always with that faint air of disbelief turning to glad surprise
and I crush you in my arms with the savage, inconsiderate
Decisiveness of a queen claiming her playthings.
For I can feel in the way the shuddering fire
in your back is fading away and your still legs are slacking
their frenzied meditations at flight,
that your heart is all mine. You are mine!
You foolish, foolish, creature.
Be glad I am fond of you.


- - -
Adreyo Sen, based in Kolkata, hopes to become a full-time writer. She did her undergraduate work in English and her postgraduate work in English and Sociology. Adreyo has been published in Danse Macabre and Kritya.