BY ANANNYA UBEROI
In the balmy afternoon
the clouds are bucketfuls of sheep, grazing
by the brick kiln houses
and their abundant lawns
with their clover and scythe
steward trees of lancashire descent
shading
a dog-ball, or a child’s
my milkmaid mother sings
to the belled oats
a pickup truck, conked at the anterior of the valley
rests in russet rust
the log carrier spills splinters
on the gravel road
even the inanimate cough out their leavings
and leaving after leaving,
all that remains
is the petal-buried bosom.
Think your heart a lake
the sun a skylark
leaping through the valley like a bumblebee
suffering small stings of paper wasps in the amaranth-milk sky
a male spicebush without the tomato buds
giving and giving, where the land is treeless
and songs are denuded of words.
ANANNYA UBEROI is a full-time software engineer and part-time tea connoisseur from Delhi. She is poetry editor at The Bookends Review, the winner of the 6th Singapore Poetry Contest and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Madrid, and delights in going to museums, hiking, and taking trains. www.anannyauberoi.com
