He shuffled the narrow terrace space.
I would wait for his legs to listen.
Then we would thank each other, smiling.
There wasn’t much to say, I fifty years the younger.

We were like cars on a mountain pass
With no room to go and
The snow falling
In the slow dripping silence of winter

When I came down the steps this morning
His door was open, white sheets on the floor
Shoes outside and the whisper of murmurs at the foot of our common stairs
He walked out early, the old man,

Past the stairs, past the gate,
Past the park bench flying empty.

Author : Amlanjyoti Goswami

Amlanjyoti Goswami grew up in Guwahati, Assam and studied at Delhi University and Harvard Law School. His poems have appeared in The Caravan, Mint, IQ: The Indian Quarterly, Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi) and The North East Review. He has also published articles in The Telegraph, The Assam Tribune and The Financial Express. He lives in Delhi.