The Sail Surrenders to the Shallow Sea

By Neeharika Mishra

Black turned crimson, shadows negotiated red 

To creep, in the veil of veins, in the form of greed. 

The voyage on the sea middle was sailing shallow,

Shores shuttled, shimmered, submerging in narrow. 

The oar streaming against the bewildering surface

Several points stuck here and there on my face. 

The angles around no void, yet it was never silent,

Up goes down, and down goes up in an arc violent. 

There stood no shadows to dance, no soul to sing

Time ticked clockwise, then anticlockwise in a wing.

Horizon to horizon, the round was never round, 

Yet it stretched like an intertwined thread abound. 

Sights sighed everywhere, words would wave,

Nobody, nowhere in the vague well, I stood naive.

Counted the slanted pieces of endeavours, 

Hands blessed with blisters of painful lores. 

It turned around, bounced back like a half-circle, 

No white appealed to my eyes’ choice, like a mortal.

There it goes! O thy magic! I surrendered in no time

Ribs faced backward, floated like I would not survive. 

Millions I counted from the tip of my wrecked ship

Not in one or two; not a tear remained to weep.

Crawling, fainted first the fist-like pumping heart,

Eyes shut, lips sealed, the body now, a layered art. 

But, to the falling traces, no lines point to me, 

Who would dwell deep the disappeared she? 

Failure was never the shallow sea, nor my sail 

Who would arc backward to rotate my last tale? 

O dear breathing creatures of surviving breath

Live long: thy heart, thy soul, thy life, thy death. 

By Neeharika Mishra