Ripped

Each night, I wrap you up
Your tender mouth and face,
Give you the softest, warmest blanketed sleep

I bite my lips and the salty waters drain down

a labyrinth of pain.

Even if it did hurt from the moment

You were formed,

I embraced its melodies in a wellspring of love,

Wanting the pain glowing

In my body and spirit,

And then it hid away in

Unsung nooks and crevices

In absorbed moments, when

your little hands and feet

Imprinted themselves on me.

I didn’t know when your incessant splash of words and your hushed sleep became my lullaby.

The river crawled back,

Twitching haphazard my indolent face.

Each night, I wrap you up

Your tender mouth and face,

Give you the softest, warmest blanketed sleep,

Each new day, you slip from the tinkle bell of my womb’s sheltered dark.

The day unwraps you in splinters, tainted brown flesh.

I know the river will now pull you downstream.

There waits your world in light, wind, mayhem and danger.

Note: I wrote this little poem for my younger daughter Sharanya (Rimli) in a bewildered mental state after she met with her first accident in her school and had a big cut in her lower chin. 

Read more creative expressions by Lopa Banerjee

Poetry – The Hummingbird, Lingering, Living

Musings – Why I Write: The Journey And The Inspiration

Review – Roots and Meanderings — A Collection of Ten Fresh, Engaging Fictional Narratives

I didn’t know when your incessant splash of words and your hushed sleep became my lullaby. A #Poem by @rooafza http://t.co/a1F8ekAeFl

— Learning&Creativity (@LearnNCreate) February 16, 2015

About the Author

Lopamudra Banerjee ( 71 Posts)

Lopamudra Banerjee is an acclaimed author, poet, translator, editor with nine solo books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has received the Journey Awards (First Place category winner) for her memoir Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey, the International Reuel Prize for Translation (2016) and also International Reuel Prize for Poetry (2017) and other honors. Her poetry has been published in renowned platforms including Life in Quarantine, the Digital Humanities Archive of Stanford University. Her collaborative poetry collection with Priscilla Rice titled We Are What We Are (Black Eagle Books, 2022) has been 1st Prize Winner at New York Book Festival 2024 and her translation of a famous Bengali historical/biographical novel titled The Bard and His Sister-in-Law (Black Eagle Books, 2023) has received Honorary Mention at Paris Book Festival and Hollywood Book Festival 2024. Recently, her debut Bengali collection of poetry Draupadi Theke Nijoswi—Amra has been launched in Kolkata and also in the Dallas Public Library, Texas, with a performance of a psychological drama ‘Mukhomukhi’, in which she has made her foray as a playwright.
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