Ghazal for my grandmother

Sneha Subramanian Kanta

Then again, the pale moon comes out: blood soon replaced with hope
traced in the mapless cocoon of fractured geography, swallows hope.

Though the night is black—with moths, its fangs open in silver—
lines of peoples reflect its copper-toothed, velvety aura, wait for hope.

The land split in abandoned houses and shadows of the dead,
the swollen blue sea with lines of canoes, leading to distant ships. Hope.

Child undone with shadowgreen scarf, windswept hair, I see you
graze your fingers as the boat unmoors, wear an organ of hope.

The sea is tea-stained at a distance, gurgles with the throat of an owl
amid a cobra-tinted night with marigolds in your hair for good omen. Hope.

Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a recipient of the Charles Wallace fellowship 2019 at the University of Stirling, Scotland. She is a GREAT scholarship awardee and has earned a second postgraduate degree in literature from England. She is the founding editor of Parentheses Journal and poetry reader for Palette Poetry.