The image of you being warned
and shot by two cops sinks and
drowns in my brain; sometimes
your ghost baby eyes open,
question me - "When shall I grow up?"
Never in this neighborhood, I windowshop
real estates, and none is anymore real than those holes
in your chest as if you illustrate what hiraeth means.
You metamorphose into the word of the day.
Words power our society, and yet I work on
the kin in silence. No. No. No. I hallucinate you,
and a place where safe hangs
from the skeleton of a billboard, and the hole
where a Welcome scripture should fit
looks like an entry wound.

An author and a father, Kushal Poddar, edited a magazine - ‘Words Surfacing’, authored seven volumes including ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, 'A Place For Your Ghost Animals', 'Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems' and 'Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel'. His works have been translated in ten languages.
Find and follow him at amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
Author Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/KushalTheWriter/
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe