Maria’s Baby by Amra Khan
A canvas
empty of colour
a body
kissed by death
A long silent wait
of the foetus
floating in
backwaters of
existence
undefined
before the cry
of anguish
I remain in half light,
listen to hidden songs
Strain to hear the ebb and flow
of tides and seas
In the coming darkness
I read you
as the blind read braille.
~Sukrita Paul Kumar
Sukrita Paul Kumar, born and brought up in Kenya, is a poet and critic, teaching literature in Delhi University. Formerly, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she is an Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA), as also of Hong Kong Baptist University and Cambridge Seminars. She is honorary faculty at the Durrell Centre at Corfu (Greece).
She has published several collections of poems and many critical books.
