Choice Poem by Sudeep Sen

drawing a breath between each
    sentence, trailing closely every word.
         — James Hoch, ‘Draft' in Miscreants
1.

some things, I knew,
were beyond choosing:


didu — grandmother — wilting
under cancer's terminal care.


mama — my uncle's — mysterious disappearance —
ventilator vibrating, severed
silently, in the hospital's unkempt dark.


an old friend's biting silence — unexplained —
   promised loyalties melting for profit
abandoning long familial presences of trust.


devi's jealous heart misreading emails
hacked carefully under cover,
her fingernails ripping
unformed poems, bloodied, scarred —
my diary pages weeping wordlessly —
my children aborted, my poetry breathless forever.


2.

these are acts that enact themselves, regardless —
    helpless, as I am,
torn asunder permanently, drugged, numbed.


strange love, this is —
a salving: what medics and nurses do.
i live buddha-like, unblinking, a painted vacant smile —
   one that stores pain and painlessness —
someone else's nirvana thrust upon me.


some things I once believed in
are beyond my choosing —
choosing is a choice unavailable to me.