Anachronism
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘My grandfather lay / leaving daughter and a son / and their assorted children / in his wake’.
My grandfather lay
leaving daughters and a son
and their assorted children
in his wake.
People paid their respects
while their children careened
around him
at breakneck speeds
on vehicles not yet invented.
“Those from the
house across the river
have not turned up,”
remarked an old prune.
The words picked their
way through the crowd.
Dyed in betel juice,
smelling of morning breath
stumbling over buckteeth,
— a whisper
of their former self.
Meanwhile,
unmindful of human
abscesses or absences,
my grandfather
wound his way
through our exhortations to stay.
We secretly hoped
he would not agree.
My aunt fished his ancient watch
out of a drawer
and placed it on his chest.
In case there are lunch breaks
in Eternity.
***
Sonya J. Nair has been published in the Borderless Journal, the Shimmer Spring Anthology and Rewriting Human Imagination, an anthology published by IASE and the Centre for Digital Humanities. When not writing poems, she serves as the Head of the Department of English, All Saints' College, Thiruvananthapuram. You can follow her on Instagram: @sonyajnair.
