I’M NOSTALGIC FOR A PLACE I HAVE NEVER SEEN

Brides in some places catch 

moonbeam through a sieve. 

A ritual to insure their husband's 

longevity. My grandma smuggled 

a river in her eyelids when she left 

home. Sugandha, it was called. 

Su-gandha, the sweet smelling one. 

She stole the river so that whenever 

she shed a tear, she could smell 

the river in the air around her. 

An insurance against forgetting. 

Her new home had no water near it.

 

In Jhalokathi, her forever former 

home, Sugandha courses on 

the same as before. Canals branch 

out from its cool, aquamarine breadth 

to steer thirsty travellers. With a little 

help, the brook learns to punctuate 

herself. A green dreamscape holds 

the water in a parenthesis. A floating

bamboo bridge, bony, resolute, gives a 

paragraph break to its carefree run-on

sentence streams. 

On the edge of a fisherman's home, 

little girls pull toy boats, their giggles 

running over the river's ripples. 

In a video on the river, I see a mother 

combing her daughter's hair. Before 

I know, the daughter turns into my 

grandma and breaks into a song. "Why don't 

you come to our house anymore?" She asks.