salt water infused with hard water and blood jostle in her open mouth head tilted back as the shower runs loud cigarette smoke enters and mixes with the steam reminding her of porosity of thresholds; a scream muffled in the folds of her gut before it can find its way out her voicelessness is a weapon words will matter in another world she twists her silence like a fleshy cord around her waist preparing to deliver the dark hollow of the motel toilet has a skylight where light’s curiosity is met. the slats half agape shards of cheap glass they gleam as she anoints herself with soap and oil names herself ‘escape’ and scales slippery tiled walls that ought to have cracks her body presses through the gaps of the slats like sugarcane through the wheels of an iron juicer that turns hard stick to pulp, but she remains whole she is mother and child both and as she knows, who knows how she knows this, as she drags the last limb through the jaws of broken glass and a door opens somewhere, she is also the umbilical cord between this world and that so she swallows up raw what held her to her past a placenta of experience a constellation of memories veined, blue and throbbing, for it will keep her safe now and nourish her in time.
Sonali Pattnaik is the author of when the flowers begin to speak, her debut collection of poems published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata. She has a PhD in English and is an academic, writer and visual artist and is the recipient of The Orange Flower Award for Poetry, 2022. She was formerly Associate Professor in English, Kirori Mal College, DU. Recent publications include poems and artwork in Through the Looking Glass Indie Blu(e) and The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess Within, Indie Blu(e), USA, The Bombay Review and The Yugen Quest Review.
Website: www.sonalipattnaik.com
Youtube: Dr. Sonali Pattnaik
The Pine Cone Review 