Photography © Edward S. Gault

 

Stranger

I see my mother sitting on the kitchen table
with her stained coffee mug.

Her eyes are vacant, she burrows deep into
her own realm of blank memories.

The air fills up with low breathing. She perhaps
does not take this world seriously.

Those two hands need to move, to become,
to transmute; it must find an expression.

Two birds stand near the open kitchen door
engaging in close conversation.

Palm fronds sway gently in the garden
at the edge of silence.

A squirrel comes close to the window and
then rushes back to the rim and idles in the sun.

She locates me at the opposite table and finds
me to my dismay, as a complete stranger.

 

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, and translator with 32 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books His poems are published across more than 150 journals. His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 16 countries. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024 for his significant contribution in Indian English Writing. His Selected Poems was published recently by CLASSIX, New Delhi. His poems were included in the Penguin Book of poems on Indian Cities.

Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine arts photographer living in Brighton, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Spectrum, Wilderness House Literary Review, Interlude, Currents, and Encore. His poetry collection, Airhead and Other Poems was published this year by Read and Green Books.