Marriage in hostage
Marriage is paper folded into two.
It looked the same from both sides
once. Now an outside waits
on an inside. Glass is settlement.
Marriage is rheum, the eye’s plea
for justice. Fairness its leftover.
The child is a snout they mistake
for a carom pocket. Adultery is Scrabble.
Marriage was a gait they wore without
mirrors. Bed sheet creases were doodles
they hid from the maid. Love was bling,
the pigeon’s doob doob. Night is a lisp.
Marriage is a metal that swallows
fingers. It clanks like a vulture’s gizzard.
Hostages busk of wheat and whistles. Silence
twitches like a nerve. Talk a G-minor drone.
SUMANA ROY's first novel, Love in the Chicken's Neck, was long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize, 2008. She lives in the Chicken's Neck, India.
