"how it adds up" // Hemant Mohapatra

[mineralwater82]

found this on the latest Eclectica and realized it's by someone who is a regular here.

how it adds up
-- by Hemant Mohapatra

what they don't tell you
is how it all ends. sure it was
spring:
                                 volcanoes exploding
in the opposite hemisphere. moon
was igneous and adrift
                                    while they cheered
your airship dreams of love
and you felt soft
                               and scared like a child
lowered into a well or some balloon
returning to a vast ocean.
                                you are in the kitchen
peeling garlic when it sneaks up
while the pots
                     stutter
                             boil
                                  burn
                                         and you hate it.
you hate it. you hate how it comes
from all directions
                                like breathless rhinos
chasing clouds you are already old
pushing this perpetual engine
                    of grief waiting at the window
for that letter to arrive three years
late so you
                  could write back "come home
my love, see how your departure
has unhinged this air"
     but it is now summer and no one writes
                    to you anyway
so  you
                               just keep on waiting.

-- from Eclectica Vol. 13, No. 3