Green Room

July 25, 2024

If she gets sometimes off
Opens the portfolio from her voice and sings
Children cry for attention or quarrel over shabby rags or iron blade or broken plastic lid.
This is the only time she wipes off whiskey stains
e-liquid drip in her mist like songs.
Frantic and nasty, children hit each other.
Their tantrums won’t work.
She is frustrated till that point where she can place the pitch into the beat
like assembling a machine.
It is that stressing only a singer like her can relate with.
Once she glances at the floor
An interval glance.
Pile of blankets
dust build stains, hair clinging at the corners.
Somewhere water spilled.
This is the only time she takes some time off
Playing with her V nails.

Jyothsnaphanija

Jyothsnaphanija teaches English Literature at ARSD College (University of Delhi), India. Her first poetry collection Ceramic Evening appeared in 2016. Her poems have recently appeared in Quail Bell, ShotGlass, The Hopper, Mixed Mag, short stories in The Bombay Review, Feminist Wire, translations in Gulmohur Quarterly, Chakkar, articles and reviews in Kitaab, Cafe Dissensus and others. She is also a singer and a traveller.

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