Loss Poem by Dr. Baishali Bhaumik Mitra

Strange, there are so many ways to die in this world!
unpleasant clammy wetness spurting out of me, is still vivid.
Terror drying my mouth, I desperately clamp my legs together
as if by doing so I could prevent the loss!

Before, I felt a jasmine tree blossoming out of my naval,
reaching my veins and appendages and inside my heart,
loving my mind and caressing my soul
its leaf and flower drinking the love in me

In my mind's eye I see a tiny figure, innocent, ivory
and when he looks up to my face
I know those eyes, mouth, smile, all mine
A life so bright and happy
among all the other deaths of mine.

Later, in that morbid hospital room
I tried to hold onto him urgently
I beg him not to leave me and
I see his eyes begging me too.
He wanted to stay too,
trying to hug desperately to that slippery silk wall
that was already hissing like an annoyed serpent,
convulsing and rejecting.

The mother water that swayed him
now rushed him down the alley
synonymous with death.
And he looked back
his eyes hurt with betrayal!
I heard that spine raking scream;
like a shrill metallic scrape, his or mine?

He must have tasted death,
the amniotic fluid in his mouth
And my mouth felt the same, taste of my failure.
Among those mechanical hands of the nurse
and the professional look of the doctor

There are so many ways to die in this world
I die all over again, death,
most grotesque and full of blood this time.
Now it is funny when they call me beautiful, because
When I look into the mirror,
failure as ugly as sin that stares back!