I forget to switch on
the washing machine for
the fourth time this week
over the sound of
my mother’s chiding, I think
of the clothes marinating in
yesterday’s sweat and foodstains
waiting for the rush of soap and water
much like a planet full
of restless bodies
stagnant as scummy puddles
buzzing with mosquitoes and the
stench of despair
waiting for a vaccine
to set us free
at first, the virus was
a monster from childhood cartoons
spiky burrs clinging, uninvited
to skin, clothing, hair
life melted into a ceremony
of sprays and sanitizers
that always smell too much like
the inside of my father’s cupboard
now, my phone floods
a pool of numbers and data
my breath catches under
six layers of cloth
I wash my hands obsessively
counting the seconds with some tune
lady macbeth muttering in her sleep
watching dreaded burrs drown
in bubbly torrents
as days blend into a
colourless mass of nothing
and too much
my grandmother forgets
the day her husband died
half a decade ago
six decades of togetherness slip
between the ridges of memory
into the gaping maw of
a year that takes, takes
and takes and takes
love, laughter, togetherness
hope, crackle and disappear
pixelated faces fade
patchy internet connections triumph
how soon before it takes
the last weapon in our collective
armoury,
memory
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Gautami Govindrajan is a law student in her final year of study at National Law University Jodhpur, in India. She started reading very young, and enjoyed escaping reality through fiction. Now, poetry helps her navigate the realities of life.
Photo by Banjo Emerson Mathew.
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