Poet Moumita Alam writes five poems on winter.
Home is not merely a word.
The warmth is the main component here
Presence of it or the absence of it
makes it summer or winter.
Under a Cashmere blanket
Delicate fingers check the temperature
on the weather report.
The homeless woman feels the mercury
on her skin and bones.
Between you and me
the mercury is dipping
Can't you feel the winter in my breath?
I have become a snow woman.
Don't blame me for that
I'm always conditioned to be a doll
Silent, submissive and easy to be moulded.
You called my warmth lust
And my desire for fornication.
Now take me in your bed
It's always winter now.
It's an abysmal cold age
The blood is clotted on the halter.
Freedom never comes
But the decree of death is being written.
Why are they afraid of a painter and a butcher?
Death news piles up
The mobile screen is awfully cold.
It shows that
One hundred people die of cold
And Sahand Nourmohammad-Zadeh, 26
Has been executed in Iran.
Dying as a verb is a misnomer often,
It depends on who is on the other side
of the news.
My friend has been frozen in Byculla jail
They say his dream is dead
Can one kill a dream too?
It's a dark cold winter
And Freedom is not spring.
In an unused schoolroom
A pagli had set up her empire
two coconut shells, three bricks,
and some dirty clothes -
the emperor and her empire.
On a cold January night
she was feasted on.
Her empire fell.
No one could hear her screaming.
There was fog outside
and too dark inside.
(Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is available on Amazon.)