‘So says the sons’ by Kalyani Bindu

Broken between spines, people-birds drop like grapes to water worlds, breathless, blistered and imploding from age.

Fish banter to sound alive.

Horizon is a line of squinting eyes, they think.

What if the dead were not dead enough?

Our fossilized genealogies eye purple flowers under dirt-tombs,

dewy eyed dreamers in a wide-mouthed mute hole.

What if the dead were not dead enough?

Sons knew no people-birds. In their island of cold winds, dives were

dreamy at that speed”. And dreams never row upstream.

What if the dreams were not dreamy enough?

People-birds carry myths wider than their beaks. 

Horizon is a line of fish eyes.

So says the sons.

Poet’s Bio: Kalyani Bindu is an Indian writer and researcher. She is the author of Two Moviegoers. She wrote on socio-cultural issues during her stint as a columnist (The Occasional Owl) in White Crow Art Daily. Her poems and essays have appeared in Better than Starbucks, Variant Literature Journal, Active Muse, Madras Courier, Muse India, Indian Review, Ethos Literary Journal, Modern Literature, Navalokam, Bhashaposhini, and the Indian Express.  

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