Birth in Between
by Sabyasachi Roy

Water is a word we say like a dare and like a hymn.

We birthed a child between gutters,

under borrowed cedar half-asleep.

Rain RSVP’d.

Her first breath tasted like salt and a truck idling far away.

My grandmother knew songs

that could call coasts back to themselves —

we tried them.

We planted a cedar like stashing contraband,

watered it with two hands and less-than-confident hope.

A river keeps a memory-file;

we keep trying to not build over the poems.

I held my daughter where my mother once held me —

both of us leaking tiny rebellions.

There’s a map in my mouth:

old totems, new pipes, the name of a fish I can still see.

Plan B is a smiling pitch for Mars — salesperson in a tie, vacuuming sincerity.

We teach the child both names: salt and city, gaagal and rust.

She will know how to speak to both.

Final: the cedar leans stubbornly sideways;

it learns to survive the wind by refusing straightness.

Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in Viridine Literary, The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review.