presence/absence

Debasish Mishra

I dig my mother's
glossolalia
at night

the way pundits excavate 
positives from a dead 
cricket match on TV 

You might very well dismiss it
as gibberish but for us
it's the language
of loss that's draped
on her mouth 
like a birthmark

My father dwells
in those syllables like a word 
that eludes the lexicon 

after his body 
cracked
like the bone of time

and left us with the agony
    of a lifetime

It's not the only place
where my father lives 

I find him in my silences 
that take the shape
of a secret 

and also in the rain that splashes 
the windowsills sometimes
and my pillows 
every night 

The absence/presence of my father 
multiplies and manifests
in different forms in different bodies 

It's just the body 
that has disappeared
but our bodies
belong to him 
more than they belong to us 

Debasish Mishra is a Senior Research Fellow at National Institute of Science Education and Research, India, whose recent poems have appeared in Arkana, Apricity, Hawaii Pacific Review, Rubbertop Review, and elsewhere.