The long summer days

By Abha Das Sarma

PROMPT—Never will I forget ...

Sprawled

Over the ocean —

Halting bystanders

Like angelus bells

Preceding peace prayers,

Failing

Turn of time

Wrapping the residue songs.

Never will I forget

The candle that burned

On your chest —

Amid uneaten pills

Spilled

Over the dark shadows.

Those travel shows

That we watched

On your last four days

When you talked

Of city of joy

And visits you never made.

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An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Siver Birch Press, The Ekphrastic Review, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.