Roots
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poem by Tejaswinee Roychowdhury: ‘My roots changed course / the day I started stuffing words / back in dictionaries’
My roots changed course
the day I started stuffing words
back in dictionaries—grandmother,
grandfather, aunt, uncle, teacher,
sister, brother, friend and father.
They now grow out of my skull
in almost straight lines, avoiding
collisions with migrating ducks,
heading for my birth constellation
in the shape of roots.
***
Tejaswinee Roychowdhury is a Pushcart-nominated writer and poet from West Bengal, India. Her work has been published in Muse India, Taco Bell Quarterly, Dreich, San Antonio Review, and more. She is the founding editor of The Hooghly Review and a lawyer. You can find her on Twitter: @TejaswineeRC and Instagram: @tejaswineeroychowdhury.
