Sketch of a Girl
Her dead gray finger
On the railing
As if a rolling coin
Falling down
With all its grace
With all its loneliness
She inhabited
She jumped into it
and became a squirrel
When she wanted to cross
A dark dream
She aloofed herself from
a shuddering touch,
from the stairs of a home
sketched in pencil,
from the sound of isolation
in heartbeats she heard
when she leaned into his hugs,
from nimble but secret fairy tales
wiping out everything-
she is sketching a story
of a dead face
rolling down a staircase
—
Fate- the biggest betrayer
Betrayal is something we always love to talk about
The wound it left us
When we talk about the wound
We try to be as steady as we can
Meanwhile we try to forget
those scars from ugly fights that happened
knowing people’s betrayal
though we know people are born-betrayers
they know how not to keep promises of being together
though we know no one can be our own
but we try to hold on
we try to change our fate!
And fate betrays us…
NO WINGS, NO SHADOW
I never talk about the sea
Whenever I go near to the sea,
I become sea sick
The waves make their face ugly
like the hound of a lion.
People sink their feet in the sea-waves
as the beggar
A kid shouts and jumps in that wave,
“Look, look! My feet have been lost in the sea!”
I don’t have any love beneath my skin
for the children, for the dumb animals-
I don’t have any love for the sea.
But you’ve chosen the sea to flee fate
You have chosen this waves’ roar for your dearest afternoon!
After lending them you, I have no wings, no shadow.
SHUTTING THE EYELID
When the train stops on the platform
Someone will get up now
who has seated with you
Getting down from the train
he would look at you
like a grey-green cat
turning his neck back
Maybe he lost himself
in your wild fragrance-
When you had kept your ear
to his chest, you heard
the sound of the hoofbeat
of a doe coming back from the tiger’s cave.
Maybe he is that womanizer-
Looking at whom you first realized
You are tired of human being!
All your regrets stand in front of you
And the love stops between the people
Keeping their head on each other’s shoulder
They whisper holding each other’s hand
When the train stops on the platform.
RETURN
However, close we are
I can only feel
The invisible distance
Between you and me!
Even knowing
This unchangeable truth-
A compulsive attraction
Pulls me to you
Again and again!
The Dreaming Machine thanks Asif Iqbal for recommending the work of Shafinur Shafin.
Shafinur Shafin is a poet, writer and editor. Though her native language is Bangla, but she also likes to write in English as well. Her first poetry collection, Nisangam, has been published from Bangladesh in 2016. Her poems and articles appeared in various magazines and journals. She is a lecturer in English Literature and also the coeditor in Prachya Review, an online literary magazine.
Cover image: Artwork by Irene De Matteis.
