Delayed
By Shrutidhora Mohor

Clouds come heavy these days, like oversized bags

Packed them with words, have you?

No, only silences.

Evenings are a good time, the broodings of the sky and the brooding mind and all that we have left in between are matched, colour-coded, and then packed in

Moving from room to room, corner to corner, lamp in hand, the same questions, the same silences for answers

As if long waiting periods make meetings easier, do they?

The sentry is still counting, the alarm bell hasn’t stopped

A mother who has been turning the pages, a son who is now back to the past, and in between me, transmitting words to lips which have fallen still, transliterating silences to words which are now only sounds, and sighs and sights, scenes and snippets, each one of us with our own, remembering is a fine act, a stage play, the wings take up the stage

Clouds come heaviest these days, bags for which we want to pay

With our lives, so to say

Instead there are lips moving in silence and there is a mother who is still at dinner, a son who hasn’t aged through decades, and me, a witness to how the mom wishes to forget and the son, to remember, while his unfinished story trails behind like a shadow