Poems by Sayantani Roy

Grandfather


When the shadows lengthened, he slipped outside, his siesta over, leaving the still-sleeping children and often forgetting to draw the deadbolt. The absence of other adults never loomed large on his mind. He strode down to the edge of the train tracks with its open-air market and slush, where commuters wrangled over spinach and overripe oranges, come from distant orchards by the trainful. The turtles he loved best, hitching up his lungi & squatting in front of their cage, dying bidi in mouth, watching tenderly these creatures fated to become their own fortress. Once he packed his belongings in a single suitcase and left for a beloved city, where he claimed the case was lost in transit— 

even in bliss
the heart 
remains fettered

On the verge

The gaggle on skates lines up 
for a few seconds, proffers 

smiles to the mother, who
holds them in her camera, & 

from the gaps in my empty-nest
window I too hold them as they 

glide away like flighty 
marbles, one almost tipping 

over and instantly steadied 
by another, caught in this 

incompossible moment 
when the path’s clear 

ahead, and yet there’s no 
telling what’s to come.  

About the Poet:

Sayantani Roy’s writing straddles India and the U.S., and she calls both places home. She has placed work in publications such as Amethyst Review, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Cold Lake Anthology, Gone Lawn, Heavy Feather Review, Impostor Poetry Journal, The Hooghly Review, The Seattle Times, Silver Birch Press, and Wordgathering. She is thrilled to be a community TA in the very popular poetry MOOC ModPo (modpo.org). Find her on Instagram @sayan_tani_r. (https://www.instagram.com/sayan_tani_r)