Some Leave This Way

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SONNET MONDAL

There were voices outside, splashing like the persistent tail of a cyclone.

Air pulled thoughts through windows like sands pull waves on a beach.

And as flashes of lightning tore the walls of rain, candles flickered.

A tiny bird waited on a window shed to hatch. It held on to tomorrow.

Morning showed up. A murmuration covered the sky, but day never dawned inside the egg.

If there were stories waiting to be told they died with their longing to be heard.

Sunlight dappling the leaves paused and wavered.

Sonnet Mondal is an Indian poet, editor, and author of An Afternoon in my Mind (Copper Coin, 2022), Karmic Chanting (Copper Coin, 2018), and Ink & Line (Dhauli Books, 2018). Founder director of Chair Poetry Evenings - Kolkata’s International Poetry Festival, Mondal serves as managing editor of Verseville. His recent works have appeared in the Harper’s Bazaar, Virginia Quarterly Review, Words Without Borders, Singing in the Dark (Penguin Random House), Luvina magazine (University of Guadalajara, Mexico), Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Short Edition-Michigan State University Libraries, Kyoto Journal, Potomac Review, Mascara Literary Review, and Honest Ulsterman among others. His works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Slovak, Macedonian, French, Russian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and Arabic.