Leaving

By Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

I picked each thread, each weave of the carpets
the pattern of the drapes, each mirror, each light
each wrought-iron balcony spoke that overlooks
the stretch of thicket, the panoramic rash of shrub
and hedge, a green punctuation in this otherwise drab
and soulless monstrosity of a megacity. But it’s transient,
our brief abode- footsteps now bound for another shore
all the morsels of our lives lie wrapped in reams
of newsprint, packed into fifty cardboard boxes.

 

Moving trucks long gone the house stands hollow.
I pause in the hallway at peace with the void booming
between the walls. Starlight struggles to spear through
smog, as an ivory glow blooms in the dark. I wonder about
our midlife madness, one way tickets in our hands
as the murals I painted wish us Godspeed on walls
that were supposed to witness the memories we
would have garnered here - ploughing through life,
growing old together, receding now, at the finality
of the clang of the skeleton key,
echoing through the lacuna.

 

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and pianist.She is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project. Her art and poetry have been widely published in both print and online literary journals and anthologies. Her recent works have been featured in Silver Birch Press, Visitant Lit, and The Amsterdam Quarterly Review. She has work forthcoming in Black Bough Poetry, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. She co-edits the Australian literary journal Authora Australis.