Page 15 - Poems

At the airport, waiting to leave, for America. Silent as a spook in the empty airport, empty in my mind
and in the silence surrounding me, as if the TV screens had finally gone dumb, and I deaf-mute, and
all my co-passengers airbrushed away. Silent and safe and away. Always away. November twenty-sixth,
two thousand and eight, away in Kolkata. Not at CST catching a train to Thane. Not at Leopold’s (never
at Leopold’s, never, since the time we lunched there long ago and there was dancing in the disc). Not
waiting to cross the road to Metro to see a show, not rushing into the Taj to pee. Safely at home in
Kolkata, touched by calls from friends just met and made, safely home still missing home, this curse
of double-placeness. July thirteenth, two thousand eleven, away in Paris. Not cringing from cooing
pigeons at Kabutar Khana, Dadar. Not entering the rabbit warrens of Panchratna, body-scanned into
diamond offices. Not gobbling pau bhaji in Khau Gulli but sipping tea in Impasse Guéménée seconds
away from the Bastille. Such fragile light seeping through the fine bone china Dominque served tea in,
such a slowly-shaping afternoon easing towards dinner cooked at home and the fireman’s ball on the
streets. Where was I on that day? Silent and safe and away. On that fateful day and the next and the next.
Safe and alive and unmaimed. Scarred by the guilt of survival. Torn by the pain of survivors. Grateful to
be alive. Safe and alive. Unmaimed and unweeping. While inside, at all the hours impossible to record,
the flower kept unfurling, from carnation to magnolia, tiger-lily to lily-white rose.

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