Short Fiction
Nostalgia
1 min
The Curved Road Home
Sonnet Mondal
Yesterday the lights went out at midnight
and the slackening ceiling fan
added music to my heavy-eyed muse
stretched like a wire between the two shafts
of anguish and faith.
I couldn't move. The dragged-up stillness
failed to give me back my stolen sleep.
The ticking wall clock felt purer
than the falling dusk of winter.
Its pulse took me to the narrow curving road
leading to my old house in Sripur
from the village bus stop.
All these passing moments
broke through my window like snow.
They kept refreshing me
like wafts of rain-soaked air.
I thought
not to visit that road ever
for I cannot be that child again
walking to the door
I expect someone to open.
My legs were not on the ground
and I was not flying either.
and the slackening ceiling fan
added music to my heavy-eyed muse
stretched like a wire between the two shafts
of anguish and faith.
I couldn't move. The dragged-up stillness
failed to give me back my stolen sleep.
The ticking wall clock felt purer
than the falling dusk of winter.
Its pulse took me to the narrow curving road
leading to my old house in Sripur
from the village bus stop.
All these passing moments
broke through my window like snow.
They kept refreshing me
like wafts of rain-soaked air.
I thought
not to visit that road ever
for I cannot be that child again
walking to the door
I expect someone to open.
My legs were not on the ground
and I was not flying either.
Cuvred Road was selected as part of MSU Library Short Edition's call for submissions on the theme of "Home," in coordination with the MSU Broad Art Museum's exhibition "Where We Dwell."
Sonnet Mondal is an Indian poet, editor, and author of An Afternoon in my Mind (Copper Coin, 2021), Karmic Chanting (Copper Coin, 2018), and Ink & Line (Dhauli Books, 2018). Founder director of Chair Poetry Evenings - Kolkata's International Poetry Festival, Mondal serves as managing editor of Verseville. His recent works have appeared in the Harper's Bazaar, Virginia Quarterly Review, Words Without Borders, Singing in the Dark anthology (Penguin Random House), Luvina magazine (University of Guadalajara, Mexico), Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Kyoto Journal, Potomac Review, and Honest Ulsterman among others. His works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Slovak, Macedonian, French, Russian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and Arabic. Note: Sripur is a village in West Bengal, India.
Sonnet Mondal is an Indian poet, editor, and author of An Afternoon in my Mind (Copper Coin, 2021), Karmic Chanting (Copper Coin, 2018), and Ink & Line (Dhauli Books, 2018). Founder director of Chair Poetry Evenings - Kolkata's International Poetry Festival, Mondal serves as managing editor of Verseville. His recent works have appeared in the Harper's Bazaar, Virginia Quarterly Review, Words Without Borders, Singing in the Dark anthology (Penguin Random House), Luvina magazine (University of Guadalajara, Mexico), Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Kyoto Journal, Potomac Review, and Honest Ulsterman among others. His works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Slovak, Macedonian, French, Russian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and Arabic. Note: Sripur is a village in West Bengal, India.
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