Mementos of Exile

Trivarna Hariharan


The shore at which 
                 I once found you

tarred––    there now  writhes
                 a pair of   fallen eyeballs. 

Watching them,
                  I am  swamped by 

a twig- red hunger
                  for the marbles a-

round which we would 
                ripple in a game of   tic-

    
                                  tac-

             toe.


                            Do you remember?


Like us––
   most of them   were crumbed
into the cataracts
      of   a new land.


Where language
           broils over the tongue
like a tulip’s 
             ripped thorns. 


Saba,   only these eyes
                   still wriggle to
                          cleanse us.


Tongue-cave the sand 

           with our childhood words.

                                               Jaan.           
                  
 jannat.          
                                           
                                           
                                       rooh.


How they      squeal & squeal
                           for our return.


Like children aching
                    for the fête


their Abba
          had promised them
                   in the park.

A crow’s eggs
          even the crow
              has abandoned. 





A dream in which the body reclaims its fragmentation

Trivarna Hariharan


Severed–
my body is borne
to a temple
 
    for resurrection.


The priest
  breaths up a story
  from the smoke
    of a coal-lipped altar.


He explains:

  a green-taloned bird
  has grabbed you
    by your braid.

You should’ve been 

    more careful of
where you were
    heading.
Worn a veil,
closed your eyes,
freed your hair of
flowers.



I titter
  under my veil,
secretly
  liking this
story.


Playing along:

  I tell him that
   
I split my foot
    at a tree’s stump.



Fell unconscious
      while drinking
          well water.



But no narrative
      ever fits completely–

frozen as
    a worm hole
      waiting for inhabitation.


What I don’t say, however is   

how free my body feels
                    in this fever.


Staggering here–
  smothered to redness. 

My body showing like  

  the swollen bust
  of an oak.

What I want to say is
I will never come back.

Father, 

don’t wrap me
into a body. 


There was no witch-bird,
      no tree––

I did it of my own knowing.


I axed myself of my own
knowing. 


 
 
 

about the writer

TrivarnaHariharan_Photo.jpg

Trivarna Hariharan is a writer and pianist based in India. She has studied English Literature at Delhi University, and the University of Cambridge. A Pushcart-prize and Orison Anthology nominee - her recent poems are published or forthcoming in Duende, Entropy, Stirring, Atticus Review, Front Porch, Rogue Agent, The Shore, and others. She has authored two collections of poetry - Letters Never Sent (Writers Workshop Kolkata, 2017) and There Was Once A River Here (Les Editions du Zaporogue, 2018). Besides writing - she has received certificates of distinction in Electronic Keyboard from Trinity College, London. You can read more of her work at trivarnahariharan.com.