Sahana Mukherjee

Last breaths of life pass away
From dingy shades of dark rooms.
Pracedented yet unseen
By the multitude.
The city sleeps in despondence.
The drenched, marshy streets of solitude.

Scraps of paper and posters
Of politics
Fall and wither.
Weary and musty the days go by;
A chain of sudden events,
Hardly predictable.

We spit
We stamp
We stumble
Upon the streets of solitude.

Sounds of cherubim-faced spirits
Play in the dirt,
Running helter-skelter.
Drenched in the rain,
The city cherishes them.

We holler
We rave
We ramble
At the streets of solitude.

Then a sudden sympathy, as
For a sleeping babe
When morning awakens and shines upon her face,
I sympathize
With the sleeping streets of solitude.