By: Adreyo Sen

Small town shop clerks
with butterfly wings on the
delicate blackness pedalling their eyes
seek to alight and make a home
in the homely hearts muscled
on ageing bike riders
with mothers who had only feet on the ground
and nothing much else anywhere.

And every so often, one such pale moth
hitches onto her doubting ride
and lets her worn holdall try
to outface the knowing stars that laugh
at her fears confirmed in the sky.