[43] A Speck of Sand, Antara Mukherjee

In between the blue eyelids and the hazel retina
a shadow line exists.

When your west melts into my east,
we discern a sameness of emotion.

Once, demonstrative independence
had traced a bit of you in me, and a bit of me in you.

We inhaled patriotism from the shining pages
of text-books that had stories of strange sacrifices.

Now, on the threshold of life, absorbed by age,
graves of loved ones at our backyard
split open phantoms of bruised past.

Every year, at the stroke of the midnight hour,
I feel partitioned between what I am
and what I could have been