The Husband Question | Rangona Bandyopadhyay

Even as you leave for office, your strapped briefcase in hand
temper the size of a sprouting plant
So hollow. So little. 
The side of my mouth bending into a half-stained sun
I am reminded the way we raced – 
one hand on my skirt and the other tripping idly
on the ghats, deft fingers willed to find love.

The day I left my home last summer,
you took me off like a dress
the way from the rack any woman takes
And since, I could see your anger split in ways two
One hidden inside your teeth, the other standing on the cliff
Of the bed creaking at night

Your plan was to tame the shrew, and 
the only way you knew
was to wax my wings, paint the wall yellow;
So I played along the lines of the make-believe, giving
you my love in lethal doses and withered flesh
six feet under – my soul buried inside a casket

My time at your old house grew around me;
Wrapped in nostalgia and webs of linen
the leaves, the garden and the branches of paranoia 
hanging by the sleeves of my blouse like cymbals threaded in
I tell myself; marriage to you can be a lot of things

A serpent coiled at my feet
gathered carefully like the drapes of saree; 
the one you bought for me
hissing and panting
Lest I step on it;

Worth the money my father paid to paint me red.

Rangona has completed her Bachelors in Literature from St. Xavier’s College and can be found watching Modern Family or cooking white-sauce pasta in her spare time.