New Year Toast Poem by Sreekala Sivasankaran

New Year Toast*


The toast I promised
To the woman in the book
Madam wax head
A permanent fixture
The New Year voice
Breaking out of darkness

All work and no travel
We quarrel over everything
Smoke stopped
And renewed continuously
Midnight children are
Crackers of the season
Giraffe out of the zoo
Wandering brain

Sister Brother Friend Lover
All in one
The slant of your laughter
Is poptune in the town
The buildings hold the hoardings
Bearing your face
Every milestone
An alphabet of your name

The Christmas mother
Mimicks your charms
Exorcism of the season
Performed on the reason
What is left behind is a bland white morning

Let me pour this blood red water
Into the lingering memory
Of woman love


By Sreekala Sivasankaran
* From the collection, *Stranded*