Chimera | Shirin Bismillah

The course of true love never did run smooth.
      -William Shakespeare

While I cut the valentine’s cake under a charcoal-
black ceiling – framed in seconds your profile
glistens on pineapple slices sinking low in cream.

Four years ago, when announced for a break in the
room filled with love letters, the knife fell by my

side, clattering. Flapping in dither you had tarnished
our soft memories of alma mater, love – packed
contemplations and desires of family happiness.

I pour out a mixture of acidic fruits in the complex
curvature of the flask, but some wintergreen grass

whirls in my putrescent memory; devoid of blue bell-
shaped flowers. I looked for you in a peculiar tribe,
In thickest of monsoons and curfews; accepting I had

lost my way. I light a natural candle for you, flameless in
heart – the ground beneath me are made of mirrors now.

Alphabets borrowed from a verse – cannot survive on
my tongue. It is facile to write your story hence now.

The fire is elsewhere – I want to eat crumb by crumb.
Let me devour and vamoose before I am caught – and

You — Stay there now — and — Let the hatchet fall…

Indian Review | Author Profile | Shirin Bismillah started as a hobbyist writer but is now completely devoted to it and has plans to pursue a Ph.D, later. Shirin’s works have been published, or are forthcoming in Transcendence Magazine, eFiction India, The Periphery, Earl of Plaid (Royal Purple) and brown critique.