By: Jahnavi Gogoi

Six am, all set for war, dressed
in his running gear, he offers
me a cup of tea. I accept.

He knows I fear drip pots.
The lingering ghosts of coffee
grounds. My recycled paper cup

is lush with bergamot, as we
do our nose kiss, and I marvel
at how skillfully he has attached

the bib with seven safety pins.
Lucky number seven, he says.
One last look in the mirror.

He bids goodbye, we promise to
meet at the finish line. The what ifs
attack as soon as he leaves. Today

they are hungry grackles. In seconds,
he is Siddhartha, Odysseus, Theseus,
and Jason. I am Penelope trapped

in a suite with a map I cannot read.
I am an abandoned woman walking out
with a child into the ill-natured cold.

Going around in circles, we are adrift,
disoriented, perspiring, arguing.
Regretting this meaninglessness, we

reach the end of the earth. My daughter,
squats, balancing her core. For once
she doesn’t tell me to touch grass but

is all sass and dimples, asking me what’s
taking him so long. Are there bears in
the woods? What about wolves?

I am no longer an atheist. I am praying
to the gods I have scorned. I forgive his
nitpicking, his faithfulness to the couch.

The politics that can tear us apart.
I wish he was a philatelist. I wonder
if he can fight bears. There he is,

there he is. No, it is a pensioner,
doubled over, exhaling a victory.
Finally, it is the keow, keow of gulls

that proclaim his arrival as he turns a
corner like Prometheus about to
steal fire from the gods. The sweat

is now salt, he is a cured Salmon.
It has been a hundred years since
he left. The world has broken with

the past. I let out a breath I
didn’t know I was holding.
“Always, always taking his own sweet time,
this man”, I blubber to a stranger.

Glossary:

Bergamot: A kind of citrus fruit flavouring tea.
Grackles: A species of bird found in North America.
Keow, keow: The sound that seagulls make.
Touch grass: Slang asking someone to go offline.
Philatelist: A collector of postage stamps.
Siddhartha: Gautam Buddha who left his family as a prince.
Odysseus, Theseus, Jason: Greek heroes in mythology known for abandoning or deserting their lovers.
Penelope: The wife of Odysseus.
Prometheus: A character in Greek mythology.
Pensioner: A retired person with a pension.
Cured Salmon: Salmon preserved with salt.
Blubber: Crying.

###

Jahnavi Gogoi is a poet born and educated in Assam and now based in Canada. She is a writer and poet. Her most recent works have been published in Acorn: a journal of contemporary haiku, Coffee & Conversations, Enchanted Garden Haiku Journal, Madras Courier, FICTILE FEELINGS by The Hooghly Review and so on. Jahnavi lives in Ontario with her family.